


Runaway Star

by ashensprites



Category: Mamamoo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, F/F, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-05-25 05:05:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14969717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashensprites/pseuds/ashensprites
Summary: As a mineral miner on Mercury, Moonbyul is very much done with her life, and wants nothing more than to escape from it all. She just didn't expect it to come in the form of a very wild, very naked madwoman.





	1. Mercury

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 4th anniversary with Mamamoo, and here's to many more!
> 
> As always, thank you for reading, and for your support.
> 
> Enjoy.

 

Moonbyul had been living and working her ass off in Section V of Mercury for as long as she could remember, and damn if she was going to stay here any a day longer. It wasn’t as if she didn’t like the place, oh no; she didn’t just dislike Section V, she hated every single inch of the damned planet.

 

Well, okay, sure, so maybe her fellow miners weren’t that bad, but they were all old fogeys, Science above, and what did centenarians know about freedom and fun? Nothing, that was what. All they knew, from their half-hearted conversations while digging for iron, were of revolutions at least centuries ago, even bloody millenia ago. Honestly, she grumbled to herself one night, who even cared about the First World War these days? It was nearly a millennium ago, damn it.

 

And why were humans still forced to harvest silicate and iron when it was a well-known fact the Juris had more than enough droids that could work faster and better than they all could? Because the Lords of the Juris decided that humans were more disposable than droids, that’s why, according to the oldest miner in her Section. The government, in Moonbyul’s own very private opinion, were a bunch of snobs up to no good.

 

And she, Moonbyul, a woman halfway through her twenties, was stuck here, rotting her youth away in the deep ferrous mines of Mercury. She wished she could go up to the Juris and give them a piece of her mind.

 

A trickle of sweat into her right eye interrupted her thoughts and incited a string of expletives as she lifted her hand to rub at her stinging eye. Around her, her fellow miners chuckled at her colourful use of language.

 

“Pretty words for a young lady, eh?” one of them called out.

 

Moonbyul turned to grin at the speaker. Lars, the head of Section V and oldest friend of hers -- both in age and friendship -- smirked back. Lars was a scrawny man with a wizened face and barely any hair on his head, and whatever was left was scraggly and snow-white. What he lacked in coiffure, however, he had in wit and leadership. Moonbyul heard rumours that long before she was born, Section V was even worse than its current state, with the previous leader always hogging the little bit of water that they were granted from the Juris, barely leaving any for the rest of the miners. It was no surprise that a good number of them died from dehydration before Lars appeared.

 

But when he arrived, he came in like a typhoon. Younger, stronger, tougher, he disposed of the selfish leader with a sweep of his hand and took the exhausted miners of Section V under his wing. Since then, water was distributed equally, the sick were reported and taken care of, and everyone was happy and well taken care of.

 

In Moonbyul’s mind, Lars was better than any of the Lords of the Juris, and deserved to stand at its helm. But alas, he was stuck on this desolate planet like the rest of them, and instead of grumbling chose to reach out to them with a kind and benevolent hand.

 

“Cat got your tongue, kid?” Lars asked, amused.

 

“Got your face first, didn’t it?” Moonbyul countered, earning Lars a round of jeering as he faked a grimace.

 

“Any more savage and you’d be a cavewoman, Moonbyul,” he teased.

 

“Then I’d finally be at the same level as you, Lars!” Satisfied with their jest and the hooting applause from the other miners, Moonbyul returned to her task at hand, raising her pickaxe to hack away at the crater of iron silicate beneath her feet.

 

To her utter surprise, her pickaxe didn’t stop at the hardened fayalite as it usually did, and went straight through. She lifted her pickaxe to eye level; at the very tip of the hook was a small glimmer of crystal ice.

 

“Well, shit.” Moonbyul dropped her pickaxe and scrabbled through the silicate dust. Her fingers felt something cool, and she grabbed a fistful of it and brought it to the light of her miner’s helmet.

 

“Holy hell, Moonbyul.” Lars was standing next to her in a heartbeat, and both of them peered at the glistening ice in her hand, amazed as their reflections peered back at them. “You’ve found water.”

 

“You ain’t gonna report it, are you, Lars?” Moonbyul asked, half nervous and half excited by her unexpected find. “Shit, the Juris hasn’t been giving us water for days now, we can’t just give this over to them. We need the water more than they do.”

 

“Now, kid.” Lars laid a hand on Moonbyul’s shoulder, his face shining. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself. Let’s dig it all up and see how much ice we’ve got first.” He gestured the other miners over and showed them the small bits of ice that had dislodged from the crystal in Moonbyul’s hand.

 

“Look at that, boys.” The miners were all boys to Lars, no matter what gender they identified with. “We’ve got ourselves some fresh water, frozen at the base of the very same crater we’re working on.” He broke off more ice from the main crystal and handed a few grains to each miner for them to examine.

 

“Try it.” He lifted his palmful of ice to his lips and crunched in, letting the ice melt in his mouth. As the ice turned to water and trickled down his throat, he felt a smile spread across his face. The other miners, including Moonbyul, followed suit after witnessing his contentment.

 

It was so madly refreshing Moonbyul immediately decided that the ice contained some kind of addictive drug. She quietly informed Lars so, and he slapped a hand on her back as he laughed heartily. “No such thing, kid! That’s pure, fresh water right there.” He leaned into the group and grinned. “And it’s all ours to harvest. Let’s get cracking!”

 

With a whoop and cheer, the miners started digging in a great fervour. At Lars’s instruction, Moonbyul jogged to their allocated rest area to retrieve buckets to store the ice. They worked for hours until each miner had their own bucket filled to the brim with ice and more, and then they all sat down to rest, exhausted as they were.

 

“Boys, take the next twenty-four off. Go home, rest, sleep, and enjoy your water.” He grinned and poked a finger in Moonbyul’s side. “Let’s have a round of applause for our youngest. Without her youthful eyes, we wouldn’t have so much water with us right now. To Moonbyul!”

 

“To Moonbyul!” The rest of them echoed, each taking their turn to thump her on the back -- a sign of approval and pride, she knew -- before leaving with their haul.

 

Lars continued to sit with Moonbyul, waving at the leaving miners until only the two of them were left. “Do you know what you’re going to do with all that ice, then?” he asked.

 

“Dunno. Drink it, I guess. Maybe take a shower now I’ve got just enough. What else?”

 

“Well,” Lars said, thoughtful, “I was thinking along the lines of trading a bucketful or two at Central for some nice, proper food. Then I’ll bring the food back for everyone to eat.”

 

Moonbyul gaped at him. This, she thought, is why Lars was the leader, and not her. “That’s bloody genius thinking!” she exclaimed. “Explains why you got the two extra buckets, eh?”

 

Lars looked over at her. “Well, actually, I’ve only got one extra bucket. The other is yours.”

 

“Mine?”

 

“That’s right, yours. Like I said, you were the one who found the source, so you should get at the very least one extra bucket. It’s only fair.”

 

Moonbyul leapt at him for a hug. “Thanks, Lars. Say, would you mind if I follow you to Central?”

 

“Of course I don’t mind,” Lars assured her. “I’ll see you in a few hours. Still living in that drive-about of yours?” At her nod, he stood up. “Alright then. Wait for me there, then you can drive us to Central.”

 

With her two -- _two!_ \-- buckets of ice in hand, Moonbyul skipped back home.

 

Home was in the form of a shuttle she had found in the junkyard of Section V. Once, it was dilapidated, its door hanging from rusty hinges, gliders all but gone, and nothing to speak of inside. After years of work at the mines, however, Moonbyul had saved up enough money to carry out considerable repair and refurbishment work on her prized possession.

 

The first agenda on her extensive list was, of course, the need for efficient climate control inside the shuttle. Although the domes that housed Central and Section V had decent enough weather mods, the lack of any visible clouds within the dome caused her skin to always feel like it was on fire, and she did not have the luxury of easily relieving herself of the stifling heat. After poking around Central and the warehouses of Section V, and sketching the various mechanisms that kept whatever little water the Juris had given them nice and cold, she engineered a cooling device not dissimilar from a refrigerator.

 

After that was reinstalling a proper door with hinges replaced, polishing and improving the cockpit of the shuttle, and changing the outer shell with greater, more heat-resistant metals and coating it all with a few layers of paint. Under her almost maternal touch towards the acquired shuttle, a small shower cubicle and stowaway sleep pod were installed. She had even purchased the appliances and tools needed for a kitchenette, despite the fact she had never cooked before and probably would never cook.

 

The door to her shuttle opened as she approached, and slid shut after she entered. Placing the two buckets of ice in a small cupboard that was specially cooled, she headed off to her shower cubicle to rinse off the dust and dirt from hours of mining. She stripped off the heavy khaki miner’s clothes and dumped them on the floor before turning on the shower tap. The amount of water that dripped out of the showerhead wasn’t generous, but to Moonbyul, it was more than sufficient to wash her entire body. Miners didn’t need to shower much anyway, since it was a given that in no time at all their hair and skin would accumulate silicate dust again.

 

Moonbyul ran her fingers through her now wet hair to shake off any remaining dust before towelling off with a spare rag Lars had given her years ago. There was a long panel of reflective metal next to the shower cubicle, and she paused in front of it. The woman in the mirror had long hair the colour of a cloudless night trailing past her shoulders and settling halfway down her back. A lock of hair curled itself on her forehead, covering her left eyebrow. Dark brown eyes with hints of silver stared out; a sleek nose scrunched up when she tried a smile.

 

Flexing her arms, she nodded approvingly at the hard, defined muscle that appeared, a telling sign of years of swinging pickaxes and hauling iron ore. Her abs were taut, slim body full of lean muscle and not much fat. Satisfied, Moonbyul strolled towards a drawer where she kept her other clothes. She pulled out a plain white support tank and matching underwear, then shrugged on a heat-resistant hoodie and a comfortable pair of sweatpants.

 

She stood there in the middle of her shuttle with her hands on her hips, debating what to do next. She decided to sort her haul of ice as it seemed to be the most important and pressing matter at the moment. Setting one bucket aside for trading purposes, she scooped out a few handfuls of ice out from her other bucket to supply her shower cubicle. Larger clumps of ice were to be used to fuel her shuttle, while the smaller crystals were for self-hydration. As she sorted the ice, she crunched on a crystal, delighting in the way the ice melted in her mouth and made its way down her throat. Water, she decided, was always best when drunk cold.

 

A knock on the door interrupted her train of thought. “Moonbyul, help an old man with the ice, will you? It’s quite a load to carry, especially since I had to trek all the way here from the main building.”

 

Moonbyul opened the door to let Lars in. He was still in his mining gear, and sweat dripped down his forehead and neck in rivulets as he held up his two insulated buckets of ice. “Kid, let me tell you: if we didn't have these magic buckets, all the ice would’ve melted. Then I'd be stuck carrying water that would evaporate straightaway in this bleeding heat. Then I'd have walked all this way for no good reason.”

 

“Lars, the mine camp is a kilometre away at max.”

 

“Easy for you to say, kid, you haven't even lived three decades yet. Trust me, when you've hit your second century mark, things go downhill really fast.” Lars stumbled into the shuttle and dropped the buckets on the floor with a loud thump. Inch by inch he straightened his back, easing out the pops and cracks as his spine reverted to its original curves, and let out a sweet sigh of relief.

 

Chuckling, Moonbyul picked up the buckets that Lars had left on her floor and moved them to her refrigeration compartment where her own stock of ice was kept. “You're so ancient, Lars, I'm surprised you ain't dead yet.”

 

It was meant as a joke, of course, but Lars’s face immediately turned so solemn at her comment Moonbyul instantly regretted her words, fearing she might have been quite discourteous. But just as quick as Lars’s face turned dark, it turned bright again, a corner of his mouth quirked up in a bemused smile. “Only gods live forever,” he murmured.

 

Moonbyul frowned. It was quite unlike Lars to mention beings of mythos in such a serious-sounding sentence. She had heard him say things like “Goddamn” and “hell”, even the occasional “Christ!”, but everyone knew those were just curses, exclamations of an old man.

 

It was common knowledge that mythical creatures were, well, mythical. Imaginary, if you will. This had been made exceedingly clear by the Juris for as long as she remembered. The fourth millennium was built on science and innovation, and in Moonbyul's opinion, these were the only things that mattered in this day and age. Creativity was welcome, sure, where would they be without music or movies? As long as everyone understood that these sorts of stories were works of fiction and did not insist on their credibility, everything was fine.

 

Not that this had mattered to Moonbyul in the slightest, since there wasn't anything creative on the planet she lived on except tales of her fellow miners. As far as Moonbyul could recall, Lars had definitely never mentioned gods or deities or any of that sort of thing. Ever. So this sort of behaviour was extremely un-Lars-like, and had her very worried.

 

She placed a hand on Lars's shoulder. “You okay, man?”

 

Lars reached up to pat her hand. “Definitely. Just tired.”

 

Moonbyul was unconvinced, but nodded anyway. She gestured to her shuttle's cockpit. “Should I start the engine, then?”

 

Lars grunted in agreement as he eased himself down onto the floor and sat down with a satisfied sigh. Moonbyul settled herself in the pilot’s seat, and with a few flicks of switches and buttons being pushed, the shuttle’s engine rumbled to life.

 

Her fingers flew over the panels as she inputted their destination.

 

*You will arrive at your destination in 5 minutes.*

 

“That voice sounds familiar,” Lars remarked behind her. Moonbyul swivelled around in her chair to face him, her cheeks already flushing in embarrassment.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Yes, it does.” Lars peered at her for a while. Suddenly his lips peeled back in a smirk. “That’s Chrystal’s voice, isn’t it?”

 

Chrystal. The femme fatale of Venus with an alluring voice and ethereal looks. From the pictures, she seemed cold, unmoving, fierce; from the vid screens, her smile, childish and teasing, said otherwise. She was all Moonbyul ever wanted, all Moonbyul knew she would never have, at least not physically.

 

Which was exactly why she programmed Chrystal’s voice into the interface. She was pretty sure there wasn’t any law against that, and even if there was, no one would ever know anyway. It wasn’t as if she was ever going to leave this planet.

 

But still she blushed. “So what?” she countered, embarrassed.

 

Lars flashed her a smirk. “Good choice.”

 

“Yeah? Well.” Moonbyul got to her feet and stuck her hands in her pockets to hide her mortification. “We’re going to be at Central soon, so you might want to look a bit more presentable than you are now. Because let’s be honest, Lars, you look like you just woke up and climbed out of a coffin.”

 

Rolling his eyes for form, Lars headed towards the shower cubicle to splash some water on his face and slick whatever little hair he had back. When he walked out, Moonbyul beckoned for him to join her in the cockpit, and both miners looked out the plexiglass shield at their destination: Central.

 

Central was the ultimate haven for anyone living on Mercury. It was encapsulated by a humongous weather dome, its sole purpose to regulate the temperature within it by creating a suitable atmosphere. The bubble-like dome itself was tinted, blocking out the majority of the sun's glare. Cloud engineers puttered about, injecting man-made clouds near the top of the hemisphere to cool down the district.

 

Inside, Central was a busy place. There were shops that sold mechanical and electrical bits, markets that held foodstuff and water for the planetary workers, some clothing stores, and a few miscellaneous stalls; and at the very centre of the district, standing tall and proud, was Merc HQ.

 

Merc HQ was helmed by one of the members of the Juris, and was home to the planet's treasury, rations store, and medical hall, as well as a few scientists that were posted to the planet. Moonbyul was familiar enough with the rations master as every Earth month she would drive to HQ to collect her sector’s rations on behalf of her colleagues. She had heard that the doctors working there were of ex-military status, and could kill as well as they could heal.

 

Patrolling Central was a small army of droids. It was easy enough to tell when they were approaching: the whirrs and clacks of the gears running the droids were ridiculously loud. Moonbyul suspected the droids never had tune-ups, and so their gears had never been oiled. Most of Central’s inhabitants took it as a convenience rather than an annoyance, especially those in the black market trade or those selling off some of their rations for more than twice the price -- which was illegal -- as they could quickly pack up and flee at the sound of approaching droids.

 

Shifting her drive back to manual, Moonbyul slowed her shuttle down to a snail’s crawl as she maneuvered around the tight streets of Central’s marketplace. A few traders recognised her shuttle as she passed by and waved at her. She parked her shuttle in a large lot and opened the door for Lars.

 

“Excuse me!” A smattering of shoppers and traders turned around at his voice. Moonbyul lugged out the insulated buckets of ice from their haul and arranged it next to him. Lars grinned. “Would you like some fresh ice?”

 

In a matter of seconds they were mobbed. “Ten credits a scoop! Ten credits a scoop!” he cried over the din.

 

“Hey, Lars, old boy,” one man elbowed his way to the front of the crowd. “Y’alright with tradin’? How much a dozen apples worth?”

 

“Show me yours and I'll give you mine,” Lars replied.

 

“Deal!” The customer burrowed his way out and returned with a small box of apples.

 

“Hey!” Moonbyul peered into the box, picked up an apple and gently pressed it. “This is that reconstructed shit, ain't it?”

 

“What, kid, you think I got the real stuff? This is Mercury, dammit, I don't got none of that shit.”

 

That made sense, and besides, reconstructed apples were better than no apples at all. “Fair. You get a solid helping of ice, boyo,” Lars said, scooping up two large handfuls and dumping it in the waiting man's bowl. Aside, he told Moonbyul, “Go and wander about, kid. I’ll take care of things here.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Yeah, kid, you should go out, get some new clothes or something. Isn’t that a thing that young people do?”

 

Moonbyul shrugged. “Dunno, man. I’ve been stuck here since forever, with y’all oldies, I wouldn’t know what young people do.”

 

Lars nodded wisely. “Well, I say it is, so off with you. Shoo.” He made a send-off gesture, waving her away from the crowd surrounding her shuttle.

 

Now that she was free, and had a few credits still on hand, Moonbyul strolled through the market, greeting shopkeepers and customers alike. She paused briefly at a few stalls, but kept going.

 

One particular stall caught her eye, and she deviated away from the main pathway of the marketplace. The stall in question held a vast array of bags in many different designs. She fingered the thick faux cloth of a large carry bag, testing the strength of its seams and durability of its multiple zips.

 

“Interested, miss?” The shopkeeper's head popped up from behind the bag, followed by the rest of him as he waddled out to sell his stock. He was a dwarf of a man, the top of his head only reaching halfway up Moonbyul's torso, with stocky limbs, a wicked grin, and a glint in his eye.

 

“Sure, yeah.”

 

“Very well! You can call me Mes,” he stuck out his hand.

 

Charmed, she took his hand and replied: “My name's Moonbyul.” He pumped it enthusiastically, nearly pulling her arm out from its socket.

 

“Good, good! Moonbyul! Are you very interested in this wonderful bag?” Mes hefted the bag that she was looking at and turned it around in his hands. “Allow me to demonstrate.”

 

He unzipped the bag and took out a long strap, which he then attached to both ends of the bag. He slipped the attached strap over his head, letting the bag hang at his hip. “It can function like a sling bag, as so.”

 

Then, shrugging it off, he fiddled with a small clasp on the strap, splitting it up into two shorter, identical straps. He deftly clicked the straps in two other places on the bag. Hooking his arms through the straps, he tugged on the bag. “And now, a backpack.”

 

“Savvy design, Mes,” Moonbyul remarked, impressed.

 

“Indeed, indeed, excellent eye.” Mes offered the bag to her. “Are you looking to buy it?”

 

“Y’know,” Moonbyul said, taking the bag from him and pulling it on, “I think I am.” She reached into her pockets and took out a handful of credits. “How much?”

 

Mes clapped his hands together and beamed. “Oh, wonderful! Fourteen credits for you, Moonbyul, for a young woman like yourself!” When she poured the credits into his palm, he bowed a full ninety degrees, his blonde hair sweeping his boots. “Thank you for buying!”

 

Fourteen credits lighter and with a practical bag at her side, Moonbyul strolled through the rest of the marketplace, stopping to buy a new set of clothes, as well as some other necessities.

 

That was when she heard the scream, so loud and so piercing it was like a tsunami of sound crashing over her entire body. She whipped around, wide eyes searching.

 

There. “No!” A woman, she realised, a woman in great distress. “Un. Hand. Me!”

 

For some unknown reason, Moonbyul was compelled to run towards the commotion. Her feet flew over the dusty roads of the marketplace, and as she ran, it slowly dawned on her that she was running towards the towering building that was Merc HQ. There would be many droids there, she knew, and a small army ready to kill anyone who disturbed the peace.

 

And still she ran.

 

Pushing through the crowd that had gathered before the giant wooden doors of HQ, Moonbyul spotted the source of the scream. A woman with wild hair the colour of rose quartz was thrashing in the grip of two droids, her limbs flying everywhere as she desperately attempted to break free.

 

And, Moonbyul noticed now, she was absolutely stark naked.

 

A crazy woman, Moonbyul decided in that instant, and started to backtrack. Then the woman, her crazed gold eyes whirling in her sockets, fixed themselves on Moonbyul.

 

“Diana!” she cried. “Help me, Diana!”

 

 _And who in the universe was_ that _?_ , Moonbyul wondered, confused. But the mad woman was still staring at her, screaming for Diana. Who Moonbyul obviously was not. And yet…

 

She took a step forward. A hand grabbed her arm. “Miss, don’t. It’s dangerous,” someone hissed behind her. That she knew, but there was something drawing her to the woman, a sensation that she didn’t understand. Her mind was telling her to leave; still her body pushed forward, until she stood at the very front of the crowd.

 

“Let her go.” Every single person in the crowd turned to look at her, their faces a mixture of awe and fear.

 

“Negative. Step back, civilian.” One of the droids turned its mechanical head to address her.

 

What had gotten into her? Moonbyul’s body propelled her forward until she was face-to-face with the droid that had spoken to her. “I said, let her go.”

 

“Warning, civilian. Continued obstruction of direct orders of the Juris will result in punishment.”

 

Moonbyul glanced at the woman in their robotic hands. She had tired of screaming, and was now breathing heavily as her eyes began to glaze over. She looked at Moonbyul.

 

“Diana,” she said quietly in her hoarse voice. “Help me.”

 

Before she knew what was happening, Moonbyul’s fist plowed into the first droid’s face of its own accord, crumpling its metallic features. Finding the metal droid more pliable than she originally thought, she continued to punch the dented droid until it was nothing more than cogs and springs. She stood up and turned to the other droid. “Let. Go,” she warned in a deep growl.

 

“Alert! Alert! Assailant is identified as-”

 

It never got the chance to finish its sentence as Moonbyul crushed its grip on the woman with one hand and sent it sprawling with a kick to its chest. Fueled by an overwhelming need to protect, Moonbyul grabbed the bemused woman’s hand and dragged her to her feet.

 

“Do you trust me?”

 

The pink-haired woman nodded. “Yes.” Behind her, the damaged droid’s eyes started to blink an alarm red. Moonbyul glanced around; more droids were beginning to appear, attracted by the distress signal of the droid she had kicked.

 

“Good.” Moonbyul tightened her grip on the woman. “Run!”


	2. Runaway

 

They ran past gaping onlookers, past the stalls littered around the marketplace. Moonbyul weaved through small alleyways, detouring away from routes whenever she spotted droids approaching. It was almost as if the damn machines could teleport, as they emerged around corners and at the ends of streets.

But no droid knew Central’s marketplace like Moonbyul did. Heck, no one knew humans better than humans did. She snuck into side alleyways that didn’t exist the day before, hid in baffled shopkeepers’ stalls, leapt over obstacles underfoot, and the woman she rescued had no other choice but to go along for the ride.

 

“Over here!” a voice hissed. Moonbyul glanced over, stopping in her tracks for only a few milliseconds. The bag seller from before, Mes, waved her over and pulled a part of his stall away to reveal a small hidden passage. “This is a faster route to your destination, good customer! Quick!”

 

Moonbyul looked behind her. The droids were gaining on them. She dashed towards the stout man, squeezing into the narrow alleyway and pulling her companion in with her. “Thanks, Mes!”

 

“Take care of my very precious bag, young child!” he called back. “And may the Gods be with you!” At the whirring sound of the droids, he turned around and grabbed a long, wooden pole. A unique pattern was carved into it: two snakes, intertwined, twisted around the pole to create a helix-like pattern.

 

Mes brandished his weapon at the droids, his brows pulling together in a fierce frown. “No more of this. Your opponent is me.”

 

 

 

Moonbyul ran through the long alleyway, her breath coming out in heavy puffs. How long more did they have to go until they reached the end of this ridiculously narrow alley? The path twisted and turned, and at every corner Moonbyul became more and more perplexed.

 

It was a great relief when she finally spotted a small slit of light a few metres ahead, and she sprinted towards it. To her surprise, she found herself right in front of her shuttle, its door open, and Lars nowhere in sight.

 

Or so it seemed, until she heard his voice coming from a turn in the road. “Go, kid, get out of here!” Lars hastened his gait as he spotted her. “They’re coming, go!”

 

“Lars?”

 

“Go! I will hold them off here while I can. Run, quick!” Lars all but pushed Moonbyul and her companion into the shuttle. “Door, shut!”

 

Although his voice had never been programmed in by Moonbyul, the shuttle door slid close anyway, to her absolute bafflement. Lars moved towards the front of her shuttle, where he hammered a fist on her cockpit. “You need to fly far away, Moonbyul. Mercury is not a safe place for you anymore. No, no, don’t open the door!” he shouted when Moonbyul made a move to open the door again.

 

“I’ve… I’ve never flown this before. It won’t work!”

 

“It will. Trust me. I need you to go as far away as you can. Go towards the asteroid belts, you can hide there.” Lars placed his hands on the shuttle and closed his eyes. “I bestow a blessing unto you, Moonbyul. Go where you must, and stay safe.” 

 

He opened his eyes, the colour of Mercurian soil, and met her confused ones. His gaze was hypnotic, and as he muttered words under his breath Moonbyul found herself plugging in coordinates as he recited them. She flicked switches, and to her amazement, the shuttle gave off no more than a small shudder before rising vertically in the air.

 

“Science above, it works.” She pressed her hands to the cockpit’s glass window. “It works!”

 

She looked down, pressing her face against the glass, trying to get a final glimpse of Lars before she flew off. She could see him, a tiny speck now, surrounded by metal droids slowly advancing upon him. Then the shuttle was off, shooting through the flimsy atmospheric film into space.

 

Moonbyul turned around, gripping the headrest of her pilot’s chair with one hand to steady herself as her senses slowly came back. “What… what just happened?” She just left Lars alone, an old man against a horde of Juris droids. What was wrong with her?

 

She turned her head towards a sobbing noise. That was the other problem, she realised. She had just saved a random woman, potentially crazed, from the Juris droids. There was definitely something wrong with her. Now Moonbyul was stuck on board with a stranger, flying off in space to some unknown destination.

 

Well, shit.

 

Resigning herself to her fate at the current moment, she forced herself to move towards the crying woman, whose face was now buried in her hands as she was curled up into a ball. “Hey. You’re safe now.”

 

The woman raised her head to look at her. “Diana,” she murmured, lifting a hand to Moonbyul’s face. “Diana, it’s you.”

 

“Who’s Diana?” Moonbyul leaned back and away from the woman’s touch, discomfited.

 

Stunned, the woman placed her hand at her chest. “Diana, it’s me. Solar.”

 

Moonbyul narrowed her eyes. “I told you, I’m not Diana.”

 

“You’re not…?” The woman froze, then lunged at Moonbyul, hands curled into claws. She scratched at Moonbyul, and the latter had to twist her body to avoid them. “Give her back to me! Give me back my Diana!”

 

“Shit, what’s your damage?” Moonbyul shoved her off, but still the woman continued to claw at her. “Stop, or I’m gonna have to put you down.”

 

“Diana!” The woman’s voice grew louder until it crescendoed into a scream. “Diana!”

 

Left with no choice, Moonbyul quickly delivered a chop to the woman’s neck and watched as she crumpled to the floor. “I warned you.”

 

Now that the woman named Solar was unconscious, Moonbyul put her bag on the floor and took her time checking herself for any injuries. Sure enough, there were a few scratches where Solar had clawed her, and where the skin was broken a few droplets of blood were beginning to well up. Exasperated, Moonbyul retrieved some strips of cloth from her drawer and wrapped them around her cuts. She then took two apples from the small crate tucked in a corner of her shuttle -- courtesy of Lars and their customer from Central -- and, taking a bite from her apple, sat down next to the woman to rearrange her thoughts.

 

From a safe distance, of course.

 

First of all, there was the matter of some unknown person named Diana. Moonbyul chewed her bite of apple contemplatively. The only Diana she knew was Wonder Woman, and she was pretty sure that the crazy lady was definitely not talking about the gorgeous, powerful  queen that was Diana Prince. 

 

So that was ruled out. But no matter how much she racked her brains, she just couldn’t think of any Diana she knew of. Or maybe this Diana person was the woman’s lover, perhaps friend; at the very least, said Diana would have been someone important to Solar. 

 

The next thing, then, would be the question of why Solar -- if that really was her name -- was running around Merc Central without a single piece of clothing on her. Moonbyul studied her collapsed form, intrigued. Her skin was slightly sun-kissed, the middle ground between fair and tanned, not a single spot on her skin a burnt red. Moonbyul knew for a fact that the majority of people on Mercury, including herself, would definitely burn if they ever dared to romp around in a tee and shorts, much less completely nude. How did Solar manage to resist skin burns?

 

Moonbyul tentatively poked Solar’s arm. The pink-haired woman failed to stir; Moonbyul took the opportunity to run her index finger down Solar’s arm, before rubbing her finger and thumb together. There was no sign of any insulation spray used, as Solar’s skin felt as smooth as a baby’s, nor was there any dry, flaky skin, a condition very commonly found in Mercury’s civilizations. Strange.

 

But the most important thought on Moonbyul’s mind was how, why she was compelled to save this female stranger. However she looked at it, it just didn’t make sense. She leaned back, resting her back on a wall of her shuttle, and closed her eyes, replaying the scene in her mind. Solar had called her Diana, and begged for her for rescue.

 

The more she thought about it, the more she came to think that Solar was, in fact, not pleading for Moonbyul to save her. Not at all. It was very much a quiet command, and Moonbyul had no way to fight against it.

 

Moonbyul considered hypnotism. It was scientifically proven, and she had heard stories of hypnotism before: either by saying a certain word, or using a trigger action, the unsuspecting victim would lose all autonomy and subject themselves to whatever the hypnotist ordered them to do. It was exactly what had happened to her in the marketplace, when she lost control and only realised she had started a fight with the Juris droids halfway through it. She recalled meeting Solar’s eyes before the fight started. That must have been how she was hypnotised in the first place.

 

Damn it all. Did this woman take her for a fool?

 

She was bloody right, wasn’t she, Moonbyul thought, temper suddenly flaring. So easily convinced, put under some damn hypnotist trick to bail her out of trouble. And it was the only plausible explanation, really. It wasn’t as if she was put under some stupid spell. That was completely fictional, would only ever happen in stories.

 

So yes, Moonbyul was sure Solar took her as an easy, submissive tool, didn’t she?

 

Well, not for long.

 

Moonbyul watched with a wary eye as Solar shifted and stirred on the floor. She looked around her shuttle in a hurry, and strode to the cockpit, leaving an apple next to Solar while she did. Sitting down at the helm, she angled herself so she could keep an eye on Solar while busying herself with the flight. She brought up the flight coordinates and a holographic map of the universe, and studied it while chewing her apple.

 

“Diana…” Solar’s voice was weak and hoarse, and from the corner of her eye Moonbyul watched as the naked woman slowly moved into a sitting position. Her hair, tangled and messy, drooped to brush the top of her breasts. Moonbyul gulped before flicking her gaze away.

 

“I told you, lady, I’m not this Diana person. And if you try to attack me again, I will throw you out of my shuttle. I mean it.”

 

Solar blinked her brown eyes --  weren’t they gold before, or was that a trick of the light, Moonbyul wondered -- and leaned towards her. Studied her. “I see,” she said. “Indeed, Diana is much more beautiful a being than you are. Who might you be, then, human?”

 

“I'll tell you who I am if you answer my questions.”

 

“And why should I?” Solar asked in an imperious tone. “You are but an insignificant presence in the universe. Why should I answer to you?”

 

“I saved your life, you ungrateful woman, and if you don't tell me who you are and what you were doing in Central I'll send you back to the Juris.” Moonbyul swiveled around in her chair. “They'll pay me a bloody handsome reward for that, too.”

 

“Then why don't you do that?” Solar jutted her chin out at her.

 

Moonbyul gritted her teeth. She shot up from her seat, took long strides towards Solar, and closed her hand over Solar's arm. Squeezed. “Don't test my patience, woman. I saved your sorry ass. You owe me your life.”

 

Solar gritted her teeth and, grabbing Moonbyul’s arm, slowly pulled her away. “Fine. I will allow you one question, and only one, if you give me something to hydrate my throat.”

 

Her hand’s so warm, Moonbyul thought. But who was she to say, really, just a lonely person who had never even held someone else’s hand. She stepped back and pointed to the apple next to Solar. “You can eat that. There’s juice in it.”

 

Solar eyed the red fruit suspiciously, and looked back at Moonbyul, who was crunching down on her own apple. Accepting the possible edibility of the fruit, she picked it up and bit into it. A surprised smile spread across her face, but was quickly followed by a baffled frown. She stared at the part of the apple where she had bit, and poked the inside with a tentative finger.

 

“This… This is not a real fruit.”

 

“Hey, not bad, lady. Abso-right. But that’s the best I’ll ever manage to have here, because the real shit is bloody expensive and rare, so.” Moonbyul took the final bite of her reconstructed fruit and wiped her hands on her sweatpants. “Deal with it.”

 

Solar sniffed. “I suppose I must thank you for providing me the means to fill up my stomach and quench my thirst, although I must be honest: this apple-like substance is in no way adequate for proper human consumption.”

 

“Aight, whatever. Spill the deets.” Moonbyul gestured at her impatiently.

 

Solar spared her a scathing look before clearing her throat. “Very well. Understand, human, you must speak of this to no one else. My name is Solar, daughter of the god Hae-mosu, though he has different names throughout the many lands.”

 

“...Right.” Now Moonbyul was absolutely certain the lady was crazy. Who else would claim they were some god’s kid? To ascertain the extent of Solar’s insanity, she sat down again and crossed her arms, prepared to interrogate the woman as much as she could. “Well, whatever. You can call me Moonbyul. What were you doing in front of HQ?”

 

“I haven’t the slightest what you’re talking about, human.” Finished with her meagre fruit offering, Solar stood up, arms akimbo and legs planted on the floor, and looked around curiously. “What an interesting place this is. So unfriendly, so cold, so sparse. I’m sure humans were living in much better conditions than this the last time I saw them.”

 

Moonbyul rolled her eyes.  First she insults me, then she insults my space, she grumbled inwardly. “The market, lady, what were you doing there? And for the sake of Science, don’t just flaunt your nakedness. No one needs to see that.  I don’t want to see that.”

 

Solar raised her eyebrows and strutted towards Moonbyul. She bent down so they were face-to-face, their noses nearly touching as she leaned forward. “The redness spreading across your face belies your true feelings, human.” She gave a little smirk, tossing her hair into Moonbyul’s face as she turned away. Solar cocked her hips, leaving Moonbyul to stare, flustered, at her rather firm butt. “Well, clothe me, then.”

 

Moonbyul pulled her hoodie over her head and drew the hood strings tight to cover as much of her face as possible. If she could just control her gay for even a minute, it would’ve been great. But no, her body had to go and betray her in front of a strange woman. And not any strange woman either; it had to be Solar, the crazy lady of the millennium who claimed to be a god.

 

Just. Fantastic.

 

Grumbling, she pushed to her feet and strode over to her small compartment of clothes. She threw a set to Solar, who picked them apart, her nose crinkling in disdain.

 

“What… what are these? Why are you offering to me pieces of cloth that have been torn?” Solar peered through a particularly large hole in the jeans she was given. “You dare to give me damaged garments?”

 

Moonbyul turned to give her the most deadpan stare she could muster. “It’s fashion, lady. People just couldn’t give up hole-y jeans since the 2000s, so a millennium later we’re still stuck with them. They’re also my most worn-out pair,” she muttered the last part to herself.

 

Solar sniffed, and with a toss of her wild pink hair attempted to pull on her jeans. Observing the design and shape of the pants, she quickly came to an understanding that they were meant to be worn on her lower body. She stuck her legs in and tugged the jeans up, wiggling her hips as she did so. “These are. Too small. For me,” she huffed, wincing when the jeans refused to go over the curve of her buttocks. “You clearly. Have. The body. Of. A stick.”

 

“Okay, okay, sure, insult your host, go on.” Moonbyul rolled her eyes as she walked to the cockpit.

 

“And where does this go?” Solar sounded ao appalled and confused that Moonbyul had to turn around.

 

“What? Oh.” Solar was dangling a pair of boyshorts between two fingers. “Oh, Science above. You’ve seriously never worn underwear before? Look, that was meant to be worn under the jeans. Now you gotta take those pants off, pull them underwear on, and  then wear the jeans again.” When Solar gaped at her, Moonbyul shrugged. “Tough luck all around.”

 

“Humans truly are creatures of odd habits,” Solar muttered under her breath, but did as told anyway. She took a second to marvel at the unexpected silky feeling of the underwear before pulling on the pair of jeans again, and had to admit that it did feel much more comfortable than before. She also pulled on the tank and tee shirt that Moonbyul had thrown to her.

 

“You know, for a supposed weirdo god lady who appeared out of nowhere, you actually know how to put on clothes. I thought aliens didn’t know how to do that.”

 

Solar rolled her eyes. “Only humans would ever think that way. It is very clear which piece of clothing goes where, if one ever bothers to take a proper look at it.”

 

“Yeah, congratulations, you’re smart. Woohoo. Now just sit in a corner and don’t move. Don’t touch anything. I need to figure out where we’re going, and you doing things you shouldn’t do can mess everything up. So sit. Stay.”

 

“Wait-” Solar started, but Moonbyul had already activated the door to separate them from each other. Bemused and frustrated, she bared her teeth at the door before turning her head to take in her surroundings. ' Don’t touch anything' , the human had said, but who was she to tell a goddess what to do? Solar grinned cheekily and started to sneak around the shuttle.

 

She started with the kitchenette. After opening a few mini-cupboards, she came to realise that there actually wasn’t anything edible in them. In fact, there wasn’t anything in the cupboards save for the apples that she had eaten just now. Pursing her lips, she closed all the cupboard doors she opened and moved off to another part of the shuttle.

 

Her fingers trailed across the walls of the shuttle and found their way into a small indent at the very back of the vehicle. Intrigued, she pushed against it. A panel next to her feet slid open, revealing a large bucket full of ice. Her eyes lit up with greed. Without a moment of hesitation Solar thrust her hands into the bucket and grabbed two fistfuls of ice. She shoved them into her mouth, desperate for hydration, and savoured in the feeling of the ice quickly melting in her mouth.

 

“And she dared to tell me that she only had those apples left,” Solar muttered, glaring at Moonbyul. “Now how do I shut this?” Groping for the indent in the wall again, she pressed it, and grinned when the panel slid back to hide the stash of ice.  Of course , she thought, and continued on towards the shower cubicle. 

 

She stood in front of the shower cubicle and attempted to stare through the frosted plexiglass, but she couldn’t see a thing. She pulled the door open, took a step into the cubicle, and nearly tripped over a pile of discarded clothes. Her hands shot out to balance herself, and frozen in place, she quickly glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping form of Moonbyul. When she was certain that Moonbyul wasn’t about to wake up, she breathed a sigh of relief and stepped over the clothes pile. 

 

“How messy,” she murmured as she nudged the pile aside with a foot.

 

 

 

_ “How messy,” she murmured as she nudged the pile aside with a foot. “Diana, must you leave your tunics in the middle of the footpath?” Solar huffed as she continued walking in the forest. _

 

_ It was unusually quiet that day in the forest of Anagni, and the calm atmosphere discomfited Solar. Diana, she knew, could not stand relaxing for even a few moments, much less the silence brewing in the forest. The forest was quiet only during the seasons of hunting, where Solar would often find Diana sitting still in her alcove, listening to the prayers of human hunters, and casting the appropriate blessings upon them. _

 

_ However, it was not hunting season that day, not at all. “Diana?” Solar called, her voice echoing throughout the forest. “I do not find this as humorous as you do. Where are you?” _

 

_ But nobody came. _

 

_ “Diana?” Solar tried again, jogging worriedly towards her lover’s living quarters.  _ Diana, _ the wind whispered as it wafted between the leaves on the trees,  _ help, Diana.

 

_ She ran and she ran and she ran, and as she did she noted with growing dread animals hiding in their homes. Hares curled into small depressions in the ground, deer peeking out from behind tree trunks, even polecat cubs huddled around their mothers as they attempted to forage for food. _

 

_ Something had happened -- something very, very wrong. _

 

_ She sprinted the last half-mile towards the alcove, a cocoon-like structure made of gargantuan leaves sewn together, nested in the biggest tree in the forest of Anagni to create a comfortable, inconspicuous hiding place. The leaves were always a mixture of bright and dark green, the colour of approaching spring, but that day they were a dark brown, with parts crumbling and flaking off, as if autumn had finally come.  _

 

_ “No.” Solar climbed the tree with surprising agility, and leapt into the alcove. It was empty, save for a diadem in the shape of a waning crescent resting in the middle of the cocoon’s floor. “No, no, no.” She approached the diadem on shaky legs and picked it up with trembling fingers, and collapsed to her knees when it disintegrated into dust in her hands, leaving her with only a small sliver of silvery metal.  _

 

_ Overcome with grief, she clutched what was left of the diadem in her fist and brought it to her heart, and wept. _

 

 

 

“Lady, what did you  do ?”

 

Solar blinked slowly as she broke out of her reverie. She raised a hand to her eyes and wiped away the tears that she didn’t realise had formed. As her mind cleared, she became more aware of the sharp wailing sound that seemed to surround her. “What… what is happening?”

 

“You tell me!” Moonbyul shouted. Solar crawled out of the shower cubicle where she had blanked out and turned towards the source of fury. Her eyes grew wide when she saw Moonbyul at the cockpit, flicking switches and muttering words she didn’t understand. The lights within the shuttle glowed a bright red, and even to the oblivious Solar it was obvious that there was some sort of emergency. “Shit, dammit,  fuck! ” Moonbyul put her hands on the control panel before her. “What did you  do? ”

 

“I did nothing!” Solar hollered back.

 

“Yeah? You’re the only one who could’ve screwed with my baby, lady, you’re the only other person here! Shit, we’re headed for that asteroid!” She exclaimed in panic as she slammed flashing buttons. 

 

Without warning, the shuttle shuddered beneath their feet two seconds before the entire vehicle dropped at a dangerous speed. Solar found herself sliding across the floor, her limbs flailing as she fought to find something to latch onto. 

 

“You’ve gotta be  kidding me! Brace yourself!” Moonbyul shouted from where she had fallen on the floor, and squeezed her eyes shut as the shuttle made a perilous nosedive to their doom.


	3. Morning

 

_Am I dead? Oh, Science above, I’m dead. Wait, let’s try breathing first. If you’re dead, you can’t breathe. Breathe._

 

_Nice, I can breathe. Good, so I’m alive. Why is it so quiet though? I can’t see anything either. Are my eyes closed? And why can’t I move my arms or my legs? Shit, shit, SHIT. Shit. Don’t panic._

 

_Did someone just pour something into my mouth? I’m drinking something. It’s cold. Tastes kinda okay. I’m so confused. What’s happening? I need to know._

 

_Open your eyes, dammit!_

 

Moonbyul’s eyes shot open. They darted around as she attempted to comprehend her surroundings. Above her was a ceiling of stars, of asteroids and space dust floating around against a pitch dark canvas. She tried to lift her hands, and found that she could, in fact, do so. Lifting them in front of her face, she noted with some interest that she could bend and flex her fingers, and as her vision became even clearer realised that cuts and bruises dotted her arms.

 

“I see you’re awake,” a woman’s quiet voice remarked. Pushing herself up to a sitting position, Moonbyul turned towards the source of the gentle voice. To her left was a woman dressed in-- was that a toga? Sporting neatly braided snowy hair and soft, doe-like eyes against pale skin, she smiled at Moonbyul as she sat cross-legged on the ground.

 

Moonbyul nodded back, apprehensive. “Uh, yeah. Hi, uh…”

 

“Salus,” the woman finished. “Though you can call me Sal. Are you feeling better? It took quite some time to patch you up, you see. You took quite the beating when you crashed. Broken bones, significant head and spinal injuries, cuts everywhere--” the woman shook her head at that “--you were very lucky to have landed here, of all the places in the belt.”

 

Moonbyul gaped at her. “You’re joking.”

 

The woman shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Your companion, now, suffered from fewer injuries. Fewer, but still major. I believe it’s because you took the brunt of the fall when your vehicle crashed, and protected her from taking most of the damage. She also has an extremely strong constitution, as expected, and is now resting in the other shelter.”

 

“No, no, that’s…” Broken bones meant she shouldn’t be able to move her arms. Head injury sounded very much like brain damage, or at the very least a terrible, terrible concussion from such a crash. And taking a good look at herself, the cuts seemed to be either already stitched, or had some odd ointment applied on them. “Did… did you do this?” Moonbyul stretched one arm out and pointed to the healing injuries. “All of it?”

 

The woman chuckled. “Yes, child. It may seem hard to believe at first, but yes.”

 

“Right. And how long was I out for?”

 

The woman hummed and pursed her lips. “I would say one and a half Earth days.”

 

Moonbyul gave a dry laugh. “Hah. No way.” The woman’s expression never changed, and Moonbyul’s grin faltered. “You’re serious. You’re actually serious.”

 

“I certainly am. Now, I would suggest you stay here, lie down, and rest for now. I’ll be going over to check on your companion.” The woman stood up and brushed off invisible dust from her toga -- it was a toga!, Moonbyul thought, slightly amused -- and strode away.

 

After the stranger left, Moonbyul continued to sit and take in the ‘room’ she was resting in. To call it an actual room would be a great exaggeration, as the only ‘walls’ that contained the room were large metal plates that were arranged at strange and erratic angles. The ceiling was made of foggy, transparent glass that reminded Moonbyul of the windows in space vehicles created in the early 2000s. Looking down, she realised that she was sitting on a pile of clothes and beddings. The textures and colours of the pile were eerily similar to the loose tee and trousers she was now donning (courtesy of her host, she assumed), and the tears in the clothes making up the pile did nothing to make her feel better.

 

Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself into a kneeling position before standing up. She immediately stumbled back a few steps, and had to lean on a wall to regain her balance. Pain flashed through her head, like a sudden streak of lightning in the night. She gripped her head in her hands and squeezed her eyes shut. Her lungs felt like they were caught in a vice-grip, like her windpipe was all but crushed, and she pounded a fist on her chest in an attempt to force herself to breathe.

 

The pain in her head grew worse, almost as if she was trapped between two wrestlers fighting. It seared directly into her left eye, carving agony on the surrounding skin. Moonbyul clutched at her eye, and with a hoarse gasp, blacked out.

 

She awoke a while later to a cooling sensation being applied to her face. Hovering above her was Solar’s face, twisted in concern as she dabbed at Moonbyul’s face with a damp cloth. “Ah.”

 

“Are you awake? Didn’t I tell you to rest?” Moonbyul and Solar instantly winced at the tone of the stranger’s voice, and the latter lifted her head to look at the stranger.

 

“Salus, did any part of your teachings include shouting at your patients?” Solar asked.

 

The stranger was silent for a moment. “But the child refused to listen to my advice, which no doubt triggered the headaches and bleeding!”

 

Moonbyul frowned. “Bleeding?” She quickly sat up, but Solar pushed her back down onto the floor. “What bleeding?” She took inventory of her limbs, patting her torso down to find any sign of wetness or a newly applied bandage.

 

Solar touched Moonbyul’s forehead in response. “Here.” She closed her eyes, prompting Moonbyul to do the same. Solar’s hand was much warmer compared to the cool air in the room, and Moonbyul’s hand unconsciously moved up to hold it.

 

Solar spoke in a soft voice, lulling Moonbyul to sleep. “Sleep. Without it, your body cannot repair itself. For saving my life not once, but twice, I bestow a blessing upon you. May your body be warm and comfortable, and you recover as fast as humanly possible.” By the time she had finished speaking, Moonbyul had fallen deeply asleep, her fingers still wrapped around Solar’s hand.

 

Smiling slightly, Solar removed her hand from Moonbyul’s loosened grip. She gently brushed back the sleeping woman’s bangs away from her forehead, her fingers tracing the new piece of gauze that covered the entire left side of Moonbyul’s forehead. “But what does it mean?” she murmured, her voice laced with concerned confusion.

 

“Curious, isn’t it?” The woman called Sal agreed. “And she looks awfully like Artemis -- or as you call her, Diana -- when she’s sleeping, too.”

 

Solar whipped her head up to face Sal, her eyes shining. “You see it too, do you not? The resemblance is uncanny. But her personality, her behaviour, it is nothing like Diana’s. This one is rude, stingy, and has the most foul mouth I have ever encountered.” She frowned down at Moonbyul, as if she had completely forgotten that she was helping to nurse her up to only a few minutes ago.

 

Sal chuckled, turning her face away to laugh. “And yet you wish to accompany and care for such a human?” she teased.

 

“It was not my choice at all!” Solar retorted loudly, then hurriedly lowered her voice to a whisper lest Moonbyul woke up. “She was the one who whisked me away onto her shuttle before I had even the slightest idea of what was happening around me.” She glared at the sleeping woman as she said so.

 

Sal shook her head. “Eyes don’t lie, Solar.”

 

It was true; her father had taught her that a long time ago. And to Sal, it was more than obvious that Solar held great interest in this human lying unconscious on the floor, from the way she asked about Moonbyul the instant she had woken after the crash, to the look in her eyes and the furrow of her brows when she was informed of her condition.

 

“Salus? How long will it take for her to fully recover?”

 

The woman in the white toga glanced up. “Not long. Perhaps a day or two, depending on how much rest she gets and how fast her body decides to repair itself.”

 

Relieved, Solar slipped her hand into Moonbyul’s before quickly removing it with a horrified gasp. She stared at her hand, as if shocked by its betrayal. She turned around when Sal laughed again, splashes of red spreading across her cheeks. “Speak not of this. Ever.”

 

Shrugging, Sal started to leave the room. “I told you, Solar. Eyes don’t lie.”

 

 

 

Moonbyul awoke to the alluring scent of hot cocoa. Her eyes fixed themselves on the small chalice next to her, nestled in Solar’s lap. It was a simple metallic cup, polished and shiny, with an serpent carved in excruciating detail into the stem of the cup. “What’s that?” she asked, her throat feeling as dry as the desert.

 

“Oh!” Solar startled, nearly upending the steaming cup of liquid onto Moonbyul. “You are awake. How are you feeling?”

 

“I’ve been better.” Moonbyul winced as she stretched with the flexibility of a two-hundred-year-old man. Twisting and turning, she somehow managed to prop herself onto her elbows, panting. “Oh, Science above, I am so sore.”

 

Solar nodded wisely, as if she had predicted this all along. She held up the chalice and brought it towards Moonbyul’s lips. “Drink.”

 

Moonbyul narrowed her eyes at her. “What’s in it?” Whatever it is, she thought, it smelled bloody delicious. Not that she’d ever admit it to the pretentious woman attempting to feed her.

 

“Medicine.” Saying so, Solar once again offered the chalice towards Moonbyul. The latter, although suspicious, was curious enough to take a sip of the clear liquid in the metallic goblet. Her eyes widened in amazement when the liquid, despite its deceptively transparent appearance, did in fact taste like how it smelled: dark hot chocolate with a dusting of cinnamon and a tinge of milk, the richness of whipped cream, the sweetness of marshmallows -- it all tasted so familiar, yet so foreign. She was sure she had never drank something this exquisite before. Yet there was something niggling at the back of her mind, like a lost memory scratching at the door. She stared at the chalice in wonder, watching how her reflection rippled across the liquid.

 

“You must be feeling better,” Solar proclaimed at the sight of Moonbyul’s expression. “Salus truly is very useful when she is needed.”

 

“That’s very nice of you to say so, Solar.” The woman in question breezed through, appraising Moonbyul with a quick glance up and down. “You look better. Not the best, I have to say, but much better than two days ago.”

 

“Two days.” Moonbyul spat out her drink. “I’ve been sleeping for two days?”

 

“And you’re almost very nearly recovered because of it,” Sal added. “I reckon some exercise would do you some good, so if you could just finish your drink and hand my cup back to me…” Eager to get up and start moving around, Moonbyul downed the contents of the cup in one go. In no way would she allow herself to lie here for one more second like some grievously ill person. She was Moonbyul, the youngest miner of Section V, and she couldn't bear to think of how her co-workers would laugh at her if they saw how pampered she was now.

 

“I never thought I would see you sleep for so long, kid,” Moonbyul imagined Lars remarking. His eyebrows would be raised in amusement as he pretended to antagonise her. “Come on then, get a move on. You can't be less fit than a centenarian, now, can you?” Embarrassed, she would have immediately jumped out of bed, injuries be damned, and would have headed to work with even more vigour than ever.

 

She now jumped up with the same enthusiasm, tossing her hair away from her face. Handing the chalice over to Sal’s waiting hands, Moonbyul quickly went through a series of routine exercises, warming up her body and testing her movements after what she felt was too long a time recuperating. “Okay, yeah, that feels good.” She swivelled her neck; both Solar and Sal winced when it emitted a very audible ‘pop’.

 

“Right.” Moonbyul clapped her hands together. “Where’s my baby?”

 

Sal blinked. “I-I’m sorry? I wasn’t aware you were with child.”

 

“I believe she was referring to the vehicle we had landed in.” Solar exchanged pointed looks with Sal.

 

“Ah.” Sal rubbed her hands together nervously before gesturing towards the door. “Follow me.”

 

Stepping out of her designated room for the first time in days, Moonbyul took a good look around. Surrounding her were walls similar to those of her room -- sheets of metal fixed together with screws not entirely tightened, put together at awkward angles to make a whole. Occasionally, panels of glass would appear like airplane windows down the aisle, allowing a view of the outside.

 

Not that there was anything in particular to observe as far as Moonbyul could see. It was way too dark outside, and not a single square inch of the outside ground could be seen. In fact, the only reason she could even see was due to the bright fluorescent lights located in the corridors where they were walking, and despite all their brightness they just were not strong enough to illuminate the outside even a little bit.

 

As they winded through the odd maze of metal and glass, Moonbyul noticed with some interest that there were minute scratches on the walls. They were not deep enough to be considered significant, and leaned towards small nicks from accidentally grazing one’s nails across the walls, but there were too many to justify a mere accident.

 

“We’re almost there.” Sal broke the silence and inclined her chin towards yet another metal plate with a handle crudely drilled into it. A door, Moonbyul thought. Crude, but effective.

 

Sal pushed a button on the side of the door, revealing a row of astronaut helmets and some astro-suits hanging from hooks. “You’ll need to wear these since we’re going outside.” She passed the suits to her guests, and after zipping herself up in one, proceeded to assist them with outfitting themselves in the unfamiliar suits.

 

The suit clung to Moonbyul’s skin like tight yoga pants. To her delight, it allowed her a full range of movement without any form of chafing. Its nearly negligible weight would easily make one forget that they were wearing a suit specifically designed to go out into a vacuum space and somehow maintain Earth’s atmospheric pressure as well as protect one from space radiation. As she tested the comfort and mobility of her suit, she caught Solar’s eye.

 

“What?”

 

“You are very skinny,” Solar stated with a slight frown. “Are you not fed enough?”

 

No, Moonbyul wanted to say, they barely feed us miners anything, since it’s apparently a waste of resources. But she kept mum and shrugged. “What’s it to you?”

 

Solar regarded her for a moment. “Nothing. Nothing at all.” They broke eye contact when Sal slid a helmet over Solar’s head and fastened it to her suit. She patted the top of the helmet before moving on to Moonbyul to help her.

 

Once she was sure that Solar was not paying attention to them, Sal leaned in. “I don’t know why she’s being weird, but when you were out, she was very concerned about you.”

 

“Huh. Really?” Moonbyul angled a glance towards the stoic pink-haired woman. “Doesn’t seem like it at all.” She took the helmet from Sal and placed it over her head.

 

Unlike the spherical helmets of early space travellers, the helmet that Moonbyul now donned was shaped like a sleek, aerodynamic motorcycle helmet that fit snugly on her head. It came equipped with in-built wireless microphones and two small pockets of man-made crystals that acted as catalysts to convert exhaled carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen. The visor protected its wearer from the often-too-bright glare of the sun’s rays -- as they were originally designed to do -- but also had voice-activated holographic technology and a personal AI unit, very much like Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit.

 

All this Moonbyul tested out with apparent glee, her eyes shining with the curiosity of a child. “This is so cool!” she exclaimed. “What’s F-Grip? Woah!” She gasped when the gloves of her space suit rippled and changed texture, forming miniature ridges down her fingers and along her palms. Her visor recited the uses of the activated F-Grip, which included not only a firmer grip on whatever objects she carried, which basically meant that she could never fumble and drop anything, but due to the strength of the material, she could actually carry objects up to ten times her original muscle power without actually needing to exert a large force.

 

“Oh, shit. This. Is. Way. Cool!” Moonbyul looked up from her hands and grinned excitedly at her companions.

 

“I’m glad you’re having fun with the equipment, kid,” Sal said, “because you might not be so prepared with what lies behind this door. Are you sure you want to see this?”

 

“I mean, yeah.” Moonbyul pointed at the door. “If my baby’s behind that, I’ve got to go through it.”

 

“Very well.” Before opening the door, Sal turned to Solar. “And later we must talk further about what we were discussing before.”

 

Taking a deep breath, she led the way out.

 

Sal was right. Moonbyul was not at all prepared for what lay behind the door.

 

Her entire space shuttle, once lovingly put together and decorated with the enthusiasm and energy of a first-time mother, was a complete wreck. The large glass screen that made up a major part of the cockpit had shattered, leaving what seemed like a million pieces of glass shards scattered on the ground. There were indents so great in the shuttle it was as if the Hulk himself had took out all his rage on the poor vehicle. Long scars ran down the sides, a result of the shuttle being knocked around by orbiting asteroids and random space debris.

 

“No.” Moonbyul took a shaky step forward, her hands outstretched as she tried to process the painful sight before her. “Oh, no.” She dashed towards her ruined vehicle and home and immediately tried to open the door. When the door responded to neither her voice print or her attempt to slide it open manually, she uttered a howl of frustration and started to ram the door with all her body weight. It took a mere three slams with her shoulder for the heavy piece of metal, once so sturdy, to crunch and collapse, exposing the ruined interior to a heartbroken Moonbyul.

 

“I don’t understand.” Behind, Sal stared at Moonbyul with a bemused gaze. “Why is she so concerned about a large piece of metal?”

 

“One must suppose the vehicle holds great emotional value to her,” Solar said.

 

Sal glanced at her. “Then in a sense I guess she’s lost a home, hasn’t she?” She looked back at Moonbyul, who was now crawling into her wrecked shuttle with the hope that she might be able to salvage even something small. “Just like us.”

 

 

 

Solar looked out through one of the many windows that lined the main corridor of Sal’s oddly-fashioned dwelling. “She has been out there for a long time, has she not?”

 

Sal leaned out from around the doorway of a room. “A few Earth hours, I reckon. Wonder what she’s doing out there? I thought everything was completely ruined.” She wiggled her eyebrows at Solar. “Worried, are you?”

 

“No.”

 

Sal chuckled. “Honestly. Gods are such liars. Go check on her if you’re that worried.” She laughed off Solar’s cool stare and waved her away.

 

Grumbling, Solar returned her gaze to the woman moving outside. She saw Moonbyul finally emerge from one of the many punctures in the shuttle, and watched as Moonbyul settled down to rest, her head in her hands. Hard as it was to admit, seeing the woman so despondent hit a chord in Solar’s heart.

 

 _Wait a minute._ Solar slapped her hands to her cheeks and shook her head violently, as if the action would somehow remove any thoughts of Moonbyul from her mind. She tunnelled her fingers through her hair in frustration when, to no one’s surprise, it didn’t work. It didn’t make any sense for her to be concerned about the welfare and happiness of the human sitting outside. Not at all.

 

Yet for some reason Solar found herself tugging on a space suit and helmet and walking out towards the despondent woman. Arms akimbo, she stood over Moonbyul and fixed what she hoped was an exasperated expression on her face. “Well, out with it, then.”

 

Moonbyul sighed and kicked at a loose pebble, sending it flying in a graceful arc over the horizon. “Just go away, Solar. I’m not in the mood.”

 

“In the mood for what?”

 

“Nothing.” Moonbyul’s reply, curt and dry, only served to frustrate Solar even more. She nearly pulled out her hair before remembering that she had a helmet on. She settled with baring her teeth and kicking Moonbyul in the shin.

 

“Ow! What was that for?”

 

“Nothing,” Solar answered. She proceeded to kick Moonbyul’s shin again.

 

“Okay, okay! What do you want?” Moonbyul returned the kick with one of her own.

 

“I want you to tell me what is going on in your head, not mope here outside and alone.”

 

“And why do you care?” Moonbyul asked. “It's not like you've suddenly decided to care about a mere 'human’.” She sneered and made air quotes with her fingers as she said the word.

 

Hurt and beyond pissed off, Solar quickly sucked in a breath and spun on her heels, turning her back to Moonbyul to hide the tears that suddenly started to brim. “Very well. If you insist on being like that, I have nothing more to say to you. You can stay outside here for the rest of your miserable life.” She stormed away from the shuttle, desperately holding back angry tears.

 

“I lost two homes, dammit!”

 

Solar stopped in her tracks at the sudden outburst.

 

“I lost two homes in a matter of days, left the only people I knew and loved as family for a random stranger who couldn’t care less, got myself nearly killed, and you’re standing there and asking me what’s wrong?”

 

Solar winced when Moonbyul’s voice teetered on the edge of cracking, and made her way back to the ruined vehicle. She eased herself down onto the edge of a rogue shuttle part and folded her hands on her lap. “I am sorry.”

 

“I… I put so much time and effort into making this my own,” Moonbyul murmured, lightly touching a frame where a door would use to slide out. “The first ever thing that I worked really hard on, the first home I could call my own. And now it’s gone.” Now she raised her gaze to look at Solar. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, her face streaked with tear marks. “Do you know what that feels like? Losing your home?”

 

“No.” Unable to meet Moonbyul’s gaze, Solar stared at her shoes instead, scuffing them on the dusty ground and tried a small laugh. “I do not recall having one to begin with.”

 

This time it was Moonbyul’s turn to wince. “Shit, really? I mean… Sorry.”

 

“There is no need to apologise for something you had no control over.”

In the silence, unsure of what else she could say, Moonbyul pushed herself to her feet with a huff. She extended a hand to Solar. “Let’s go inside. It’s getting kinda cold out here.”

 

Solar merely frowned at it before pushing herself to her feet. “I was not aware of that fact.”

 

Even Moonbyul had to cringe at herself and her lame attempt at an excuse to overcome the dead air. Of course Solar wouldn’t think that it was getting cold; after all, the space suits they wore were temperature-regulated and kept them as warm and comfortable as they could be.  awkwardly tucked her hands into the space suit’s built-in pockets. “Whatever. Let’s just go in.”

 

“Certainly. I have matters to discuss with Salus, after all, and this has only served as a temporary delay to information extremely crucial to me.”

 

Moonbyul scoffed at her words. For a second, she had thought that Solar was actually concerned about her, but it seemed as if the woman had gone back to her brusque mannerisms. She was, however, curious about what the doctor had to say to Solar. “What did she want to talk about?”

 

Solar simply said: “Gods.”


	4. Woolsthorpe

 

They found Sal in what Moonbyul assumed was a pantry of sorts. The room was stacked from floor to ceiling with cans of food and packets of water, all sorted and labelled with their contents. There was even a pile of folded clothes and sheets in a corner, which was what Moonbyul assumed Sal had made her toga out of.

 

“Woah,” Moonbyul muttered. “Where did all of this come from?”

 

Sal turned around at the sound of her voice and raised her eyebrows. “You don’t look too good, child,” she remarked, “and I’m not just talking about all your bruises.”

 

“Gee, thanks.”

 

“You should probably get those bandages changed. I’m sure I’ve got some clean ones in here somewhere.” Sal started rummaging around, eventually digging up a large first-aid kit. “Now let’s get you patched up. Again.”

 

“Salus,” Solar interrupted, stepping between the two. “There are matters we must discuss.”

 

Looking perturbed, Sal blinked a few times. Her eyes cleared when realisation struck her. “Ah, yes. Of course. Can’t it wait until-”

 

Solar shook her head. Sal sighed. Turning to Moonbyul, she asked: “Do you think you can do this yourself?” At Moonbyul’s nod, she handed the kit over. “Sorry about that.”

 

“Can’t I just stay here and you patch me up while you’re talking?” Moonbyul offered.

 

“No.” Solar made a shoo-ing gesture, and to further chase her away, nudged Moonbyul away and towards the doorway. “This does not, and should not, concern you. Take care of yourself first, and knock if you have a question for Sal.”

 

The door slid shut in Moonbyul’s face, and she was left standing in the corridor with an unexpectedly heavy first-aid kit.

 

“Well then.”

 

Too lazy to move, Moonbyul sat down then and there in the cold, but not too cold, corridor, and set to rewrap her wounds. She tentatively unbandaged one on her left calf, prepared to see an ugly gash in her flesh. After all, she didn’t clock that much time in recovery.

 

Therefore, it was a pleasant surprise to see that not only was the cut not as big as she had first imagined, but the suturing was so well done that her skin had already started to repair itself and seal the cut. The area surrounding the cut was tinted yellow, presumably from the antiseptic ointment that Sal had applied, or something else that Moonbyul didn’t know of. Either way, it had done its job.

 

She quickly and efficiently redressed all the injuries she could find on herself. Suddenly, she remembered that a new wound had opened on her forehead after she had woke up, and patted at the patch of gauze just above her left eye.

 

“Need a mirror for this one, don’t I?” she asked no one in particular. Gathering up all the first-aid supplies that she had left on the floor, Moonbyul headed off to find a mirror somewhere in the large labyrinth that was Sal’s home.

 

 

 

Solar paced, agitated. She whipped around to jab a finger at Sal, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “It makes no sense. We are infallible, untouchable to humans. What proof do you have to support your claims?”

 

“We’re here, tangible not of our own volition to that of humankind, aren’t we?” Sal replied, shrugging a shoulder delicately. “It took me a while to believe it at first, Solar, trust me. And from what I gather over my years living here on this forsaken lump of rock, it is the only viable conclusion: our kind doesn’t exist anymore.”

 

“That is not possible. Humans cannot just dismiss us like how they dismiss every little inconvenience or dislike. We are their creators! We -- you and I and the rest of us -- we made them! We made all the worlds available to them! It would be foolish for them to scorn us.”

 

“That’s the reality we’re living in now, Solar. I don’t know exactly how it correlates to us being here exactly, but what I do know is that the first few of us vanished around the same time we were… forgotten.”

 

Solar kicked at a wall, listening to it ring in protest. “And that forced us to manifest into a physical human form?” she asked, still in disbelief.

 

Sal nodded. “Looks like it.”

 

Rubbing at her eyes, Solar sat down with a thump. “I-I refuse to believe this.” And yet… “Perhaps that may explain the human’s reaction towards me.”

 

Sal startled. “You mean… you told Moonbyul about us? She knows that we’re gods?”

 

Solar reddened in embarrassment. “Admittedly, I had thought that it would make her more, shall we say, receptive to my requests.”

 

Sal could only gape at her. How could someone be so reckless in this day and age? 

 

“Such modesty,” she managed. “I assume she didn’t react well to your, uh, claims?”

 

“Indeed. In fact, she dismissed them, called me crazy. All nonsense, of course,” Solar huffed, indignant.

 

Sal hummed, deep in thought. An idea struck her, and she leaned forward as if passing on a very important secret. “Well, since this has already happened, why not just use it to our advantage?”

 

Apprehensive but curious, Solar narrowed her eyes and leaned forward in kind. “How?”

 

Just as Sal opened her mouth to begin her explanation, Moonbyul burst in through the door, wielding a nail gun. Her chest heaving with exertion, she aimed the gun at Sal. “What. The fuck. Did you do.”

 

Solar jumped up and glared at Moonbyul. “Put that away, human. You have no right to point such a thing at her.”

 

“Don’t I?” Moonbyul slowly advanced, the gun never swaying from its target. “Then ask her to explain what happened to the seven members of Newton 51.” 

 

“And what is that supposed to be?” Solar snapped, exasperated. “How in Father’s name should she know what that is, or who those humans are?”

 

“They’re dead.”

 

Solar whipped her head around to stare at Sal, the retort on her lips frozen in place. Her eyes darted to Moonbyul who was now standing next to her, then back to Sal. “W-what?”

 

“You wouldn’t know, huh?” Moonbyul shook her head. “Newton 51. Seven volunteers from Merc Central and its surrounding colonies, selected and trained to test a new speed shuttle that would bring them from Mercury to Neptune. They went missing after passing Mars. Lost in fucking space.” She left out the fact they were all familiar faces that she would sometimes meet at the markets in Central, or when she had her regular work-related appointments with her supervisors. The reminder hurt, the loss of a friendly face a knife through her heart.

 

“And what exactly is her involvement with this group of humans?” Solar asked, more out of curiosity than anger now. She nudged Sal with a foot. “Explain.”

 

“They crash landed, like you two,” Sal said, her shoulders lifting and falling. “Knocked by stray debris that was floating around in the asteroid belt. Or at least that’s what the sole survivor said when he woke up. The rest of them were found dead on landing -- which begets the question, how did you survive a fall similar to theirs? After I deemed him as fit and fully healed, he busied himself around the place, but it must have been too much for him. He informed me that he couldn’t stay here with his deceased colleagues, couldn’t bear the thought of being the only one who lived.”

 

“So?” Moonbyul asked.

 

“So he left. Thanked me, taught me how to use the space-suits that his crewmates wore, and left. Walked out the door into the deep darkness, and… Well, I don’t know what happened to him after that.”

 

Moonbyul’s arms dropped, then came back up again. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

 

“I don’t have any reason to lie, child.” Sal chuckled. “Especially not since I’m going to tell you how to leave this place.”

 

The gun in Moonbyul’s hand hit the floor together with her jaw. Even Solar could not mask the surprise on her face. Both goggled at Sal, who picked up the nail gun from the floor with two fingers and tucked it into a pantry drawer. She stood up and clapped her hands together. “Now that that’s out of the way… Shall we?”

 

She approached the gobsmacked Moonbyul and tapped her on the nose. “And you, child, don’t forget who was the one who healed you and took care of you in the first place. Gratitude goes a long way.” Tossing a loose part of her toga over her shoulder, she gestured at them to follow her out. 

 

“I still don’t trust her,” Moonbyul muttered under her breath as she followed Sal out.

 

“Trust a human to say that,” Solar huffed. “When have gods ever let you down?”

 

Moonbyul had no answer to that, as she had never believed in supernatural forces, but she had a feeling the right answer to that question would not please Solar one bit.

 

  
  


At the sight before her, Moonbyul’s mouth dropped open for the second time today. It took all her willpower to not run and squeal like, well, a girl. She shuddered at the thought of anyone even seeing her act that way, but the urge to do so was so strong. She compensated by pressing her lips together to control the mad grin that threatened to burst across her cheeks, and walked forward with her hands curled into fists to stop her fingers from instinctively wiggling. 

 

Before them was a shuttle a tad smaller than Moonbyul’s, designed so it could fit into the refurbished hangar that extended from the main building. Although the vehicle was very clearly meant to be a shuttle from its exterior, its framework and finish was slightly off, as if none of the parts were made to fit. The two windows installed were at wonky angles, and while the cockpit was in the shape of a hemisphere, the body of the shuttle tapered to a pointed end.

 

It was, to Solar’s mind, a sort of weird and metallic fish.

 

But what truly captured Moonbyul’s attention was the name of the shuttle, for splashed across the body of the shuttle in dusty red was the word: 

 

_**WOOLSTHORPE.** _

 

“Woolsthorpe.” Moonbyul ran her hand over the paint and smiled sadly.

 

“Well? What does that mean?” Solar demanded.

 

“It’s his birthplace. Woolsthorpe, Sir Isaac Newton’s birthplace.” Moonbyul turned around. “I guess he really wanted to go home.” Though a home wouldn’t ever feel right when you’ve lost too many things, too many people.

 

Sal placed a hand on Moonbyul’s shoulder. “Maybe you can finish his mission. I don’t know what to do with it otherwise. Gods, I didn’t even know what it was until he told me.”

 

“Really?” Moonbyul’s eyes shone with excitement at the prospect of piloting a shuttle again. Then, speaking to the shuttle, she cooed: “Baby, don’t worry. Mama’s gonna tune you up so we can fly all the way to Neptune and back, no problem-o.”

 

“If you need any supplies, we’ve piled all the construction material we could scavenge next door,” Sal offered, “and food and water are all in the pantry.”

 

Moonbyul flashed her a thumbs-up. “As much as I hate to say it, I should probably scavenge whatever I can get from my own shuttle as well.” She inclined her head at Solar and curled her lip. “What are you gonna do? Criticize me or somethin’? Stand around kicking people?”

 

Solar tossed her hair back and sniffed. “I was about to offer you my assistance, but it seems as if you have no need for it.”

 

Sal muffled a laugh behind her hand as Moonbyul, mortified, turned red. “I mean, I didn’t say that. Um. You could, uh, pass me some stuff, help me scavenge things?”

 

Solar cocked her head to one side and placed her hands on her hips. “Is that a request?” she asked, her eyes glowing gold with the trace of laughter lingering under her words.

 

_ What is wrong with me _ , Moonbyul wondered, feeling the blush work through her neck all the way down to her toes as Solar’s eyes continued to pierce her. “Um. I guess. I-if you want it to be?”

 

“Very well.” Solar smiled benignly, her eyes settling down to their original brownish hue. She barely even reacted when Sal let out an amused snort, her gaze fixed on Moonbyul’s pink face. “Let us begin.”

 

 

 

Moonbyul sat, feet planted apart to keep balance, atop a pile of accumulating metal sheets along with an assortment of fixtures. Tossed at the bottom of the pile was the pilot’s seat that once lived in her shuttle’s cockpit. A trail of ice led from a gaping hole in the shuttle to the pile she was sat upon.  _ All that hard work, _ she thought,  _and for what? Gone in an instance_.

 

“Must you take a rest now?” Solar called, leaning on the doorframe of the shuttle. “Come. We are nearly finished.”

 

“Right.” Moonbyul jumped down. Her feet skidded and slipped on the ice, and she did a swift twist and roll before neatly landing on her feet. She quickly glanced at Solar, and grinned at the impressed look on her face before the pink-haired woman turned away.

 

“Hey!” Sal poked her head out of a hole. “Where did you get this?” From another hole she dangled a hefty satchel, completely undamaged.

 

Moonbyul jogged over and plucked it from her hands. “Woah. Mes sure wasn’t kidding about his bag.” Not a single fiber had loosened from the body of the bag, and its quality was still as good as when she had first bought it on Mercury. A quick adjustment of the straps was enough to assure her that the bag that she bought was probably the most durable object to have ever graced the universe.

 

“Mes?” Sal asked, making her way out of the wreck. “Who would that be?”

 

“He’s this bag seller I met at Central. It’s the major marketplace on Mercury. Dunno much else about him. Blond, ye high” -- Moonbyul levelled her hand around the last of her ribs -- “with a damn cheeky grin. Oh, and I think he had some kind of, like, long stick pole type thing?” She gestured with both hands in the air and mimicked thumping the ground with her imaginary staff. “With squiggly carvings in a helix shape.”

 

“Like this?” Sal drew a quick sketch in the dust with a foot, a long staff with two snakes criss-crossing down it. 

 

Moonbyul nodded. Sal gaped at her, dumbstruck. “You met Hermes? You actually met  _ Hermes _ ?”

 

“I did?” Moonbyul asked in return, confused.

 

“Well, if he is still in possession of his caduceus, and he was the one who gave you this bag, then he is most definitely Hermes. Oh, what Grandfather would say about this!” Sal exclaimed, grinning from ear to ear as she skipped around in excitement. Neither Moonbyul nor Solar had ever seen her act this way, and they were rather beguiled by her odd behaviour.

 

“And he gave you his bag! You’re possibly the luckiest human in the universe right now, you know that?” Sal clasped Moonbyul’s hands in hers.

 

“Hold up a mo. I’m sorry, but who’s Hermes?” Moonbyul asked, leaning away from Sal’s shining eyes.

 

Sal sighed. “Children these days, not a lick of knowledge in them. Hermes is my grandfather’s half-brother, born from the same father: Zeus. You must have heard of him, no?” She pursed her lips. “Although you might be more familiar with the name Jupiter.”

 

Moonbyul’s eyebrows drew together. “Like… the planet?”

 

“Exactly like the planet. Don’t you know your predecessors had named so many parts of your universe after us gods?” Sal grinned. “Even the lump of rock we stand on is named after a god.”

 

They shed their space-suits once they were in the building. Moonbyul picked up two folded suits that they had prepared for take-off and put them in her bag, passing a helmet to Solar to carry before taking the other for herself.

 

“You sure you don’t wanna come with?” Moonbyul asked Sal as they headed back to the hangar where the Woolsthorpe shuttle was kept. In a quieter voice, she said, “You’d be a better companion than Miss Crazy Grumpy-pants over there.”

 

“I heard that,” Solar called without looking back.

 

Sal snickered. “Yes, I’m very sure,” she replied, patting Moonbyul on the back. “And you may not think so now, but I do believe that you and Solar were meant to find each other. After all, you did save and protect her without really meaning to, and isn’t that instinct part of your connection? And you do really resemble someone close to her heart.”

 

“You mean, Diana?”

 

Sal blinked once, then twice. “You know about Diana?”

 

Moonbyul shrugged and pointed a finger at Solar. “When I picked her up she was screaming that name like crazy. That’s all I know.”

 

Sal sighed and rested her hand on Moonbyul’s shoulder. “Well, Diana is-”

 

“Salus, daughter of Asclepius. Say no more.” Sal glanced up sharply at Solar’s tart tone and immediately shut up.

 

“Sorry,” she muttered to Moonbyul. “I suppose she’s been on edge ever since Diana, you know,  _ vanished _ .”

 

“Vanished?” Moonbyul began to ask, but Solar had already slowed her pace enough to grab Moonbyul’s arm and haul her away from Sal before she could spill any more details. Moonbyul stared at Solar’s hand where she was gripping her forearm tightly, fingers digging into her flesh, then at Solar herself.

 

Disconcerted yet intrigued, Moonbyul actually did want to know more about the enigma that was Solar. But Solar refused to talk. Her face had shut down when Sal mentioned Diana, her sassy mouth settling into cool lines that did not move. All the questions that Moonbyul wanted to ask died at the tip of her tongue, and whether it was Solar’s icy silence or the fact that she could feel there was something that under no circumstances she should know about, for the first time ever, Moonbyul allowed herself to be led by the wrist all the way to the hangar.

 

“Do you really think you can pilot… this?” Sal enquired when they reached the shuttle.

 

Moonbyul gave her a confident nod as she dumped all her things into the shuttle. “I managed to fly my old one without any problems until the crash” - she eyed Solar as she said that - “and since I modeled my reconfigured shuttle after them famous ones, there shouldn’t be much of a difference.” She climbed into the cockpit and ran her hands over the buttons and switches waiting to be triggered. “Yep. All in order,” she murmured to herself, pleased.

 

Turning around, she craned her neck to check the main body of the shuttle where Solar had very neatly arranged everything in order. “Are some people naturally created to not have any sort of organisational skill?” Solar asked in an annoyed tone, though Sal could tell that there wasn’t much bite to the question, like when Moonbyul rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out in response.

 

“Say, Sal,” Moonbyul shifted back to the input console of the shuttle, “you probably wouldn’t know this, but do you maybe know where we are in the galaxy exactly? I mean, if you know the coordinates that’ll be great and all, but a general location will be pretty damn good as well.”

 

“I’ll do you one better,” Sal said with a wink. Striding to one of the multitude of panels in the hangar, she opened it and produced a small cube with lights flickering within it, like fireflies against a dark night. “Try this.” She tossed it to Moonbyul, almost carelessly, before climbing into the shuttle.

 

In contrast, Moonbyul received it with gentle hands, and lifted it to eye level to examine it. She pressed a finger into the small indent at the top of the cube. The cube’s lights flashed as one, a brilliant sky blue dazzling the three women and overwhelming their senses.

 

When the bright light wore off, they found themselves standing in a holographic projection of… was it the universe? Small stars winking in a sea of dark midnight, giant galaxies drifting closer or apart, whirlpools swallowing smaller galaxies, and stars swelling until they blow up in a red explosion. Moonbyul, Sal, even Solar couldn’t help but gawk as the universe swum around them in dark space. “It’s not just a cosmos map,” Moonbyul breathed in awe, “it’s a  dynamic map of the universe.”

 

Intuition had her dipping her right fist into what looked like the Milky Way, and with a deep breath she splayed her hand as she swept the galaxy across the hologram. The projection of the Milky Way immediately expanded to surround them. At Solar’s end hovered the brilliant Sun, with solar winds sprinting across the giant mass of plasma and emitting blinding solar flares. Sal, standing in the middle of the hologram, poked at the asteroids and small planets floating in orbit between Mars and Jupiter, while Moonbyul held in her hands the projection of Pluto as it inched along in Kuiper’s belt.

 

Solar broke the silence. “Amazing.” Not in her wildest imagination could she have thought of ever witnessing such technological capability, nor did she ever think that humans could have surpassed their ancestors in such impressive ways, and in such a short time.

 

For now, Moonbyul made her way over to where Sal was standing. In front of them was a glowing red dot pulsing on one of the larger asteroids. “Looks like we’re on Hygieia, the asteroid,” Moonbyul announced.

 

“It must be a coincidence,” Solar said.

 

“Why?”

 

“It’s not a coincidence, Solar,” Sal disagreed. “I really do believe for those of us who were lucky -- or unlucky -- enough, we fell somewhere where our powers would be strongest, or we would have the most influence, or even where we would be able to receive some kind of help.”

 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Moonbyul interrupted loudly. “What are we talking about here?”

 

“We are on Hygieia, correct?” Sal waited for Moonbyul’s nod before continuing. “Hygieia is my Greek name. We are standing on an asteroid named after me.”

 

“Huh.” Moonbyul allowed the idea to simmer in her head. “That sounds… rude, and kinda not right, saying that we’re physically on you.”

 

“Oh, you.” Sal slapped Moonbyul’s arm playfully. “But what I said does make some sense. After all, you did meet Hermes on Mercury, which is the Roman equivalent of his name as well.”

 

“But what about me?” Solar countered. “I too woke up on Mercury, yet I have no associations with your family. Even my abilities seemed to cease to exist.”

 

Sal glanced over at Moonbyul who, in a state of bewilderment, had found her way back to the cockpit to clear her thoughts and focus. “You found _her_ there.”

 

 

 

Those were the words that reverberated in Solar’s mind as the Woolsthorpe shuttle began its maiden voyage out of the asteroid belt towards Jupiter. She observed Moonbyul in the cockpit, how her fingers flew over the flashing lights at the input console, the tilt of her head whenever she consulted the miniaturised version of the cosmos map, the stretching of her neck and bending of her back after she stood at the console for a bit too long. When she finally turned around, it was obvious that she was tired.

 

“Stop rubbing your eyes,” Solar snapped, shoving her concern away so it wouldn’t show on her face. “You will only dry out your eyes, and that will only serve to irritate them even further.”

 

“Sorry,” Moonbyul mumbled, stumbling when the shuttle abruptly tilted. In a flash, Solar jumped up to catch her by the arm.

 

“Sit down,” Solar ordered, disconcerted. Moonbyul’s eyes were red-rimmed, and her hand kept drifting towards the patch of gauze above her left eye. “Does it hurt?” Solar asked softly, removing her hand.

 

“Kinda.”

 

“Sit here. I am sure Salus had left a medical kit in here.” Wandering around, Solar soon fished out a first aid kit from somewhere and returned to Moonbyul. Like how Sal had previously done, she peeled off the bloody gauze and wrapped it up. Sal’s medicine had done its job; a pink scar was all that was left of the wound. 

 

“I believe there is pain only because it is still healing. Do not touch it; I will place another patch on the scar so you do not get the urge to scratch it.” Saying so, she stuck another sheet of gauze on the scar and patted it gently.

 

Moonbyul suddenly caught her wrist mid-pat. “Solar.” 

 

Taken aback, Solar quickly jerked backwards and stared at Moonbyul. Stared into her luminous silver eyes. “Y-you are not Moonbyul. Diana.”

 

“Solar,” the woman who was not Moonbyul repeated. “Cannot… help… trapped… pain…”

 

“Diana.” Solar clasped Not-Moonbyul’s hand in hers. “Where are you? I am here. I will save you.”

 

“No.” With silver eyes glowing intensely, the woman who was not Moonbyul lunged forward and kissed Solar.

 

 

 

 

_ Darkness. White walls. Furious shouts. Quiet sobs. Burning metal. Cold air. Stabbing pain. Blissful numbness. _

 

_ A woman. Tanned skin. Black hair. Fierce eyes. Tight mouth. Beauty mark. Handcuffs in hand. Whip on belt. _

 

_ Shut door. _

 

 

 

“Hey, I think we’re here!” Moonbyul’s excited shout cut through the fog in Solar’s brain. Looking up from where she was sitting on the floor, Moonbyul was standing at the cockpit, rejuvenated, and staring out of the glass display window.

 

Solar raised a trembling hand to her lips. “She kissed me.”

 

“What?” Moonbyul shouted back. “I can’t really hear you, there’s too much stuff going on right now.” She made her way back to Solar. “What did you say?”

 

“She kissed me,” Solar said again.

 

Moonbyul frowned. “Who did? Well, whatever,” she said, shrugging. She grabbed Solar’s hand, too animated to stay still, and dragged her to the cockpit. “Come on, take a look!”

 

The giant moon before them was a sight for sore eyes. Like white scars against dark skin, its entire surface seemed to be crushed and indented with an uncountable number of craters. Some craters stood alone, while others were part of a chain, almost like a family.

 

“You see that?” Moonbyul pointed at an unintelligible part of their holographic map, and then at a particularly deep crater on the approaching moon. “There’re lifeforms! Humans, like u -- like me! It’s a whole colony!” Her voice grew louder and louder until it became almost a hysterical shriek of pure excitement. 

 

“Oh man, this is amazing!” She jumped up and down, completely oblivious to the woman standing beside her. “We’re gonna see real people again!”

 

But Solar couldn’t muster even an ounce of enthusiasm, not after that vision. She was sure that for the briefest of moments, out of pure luck and nothing else, that Diana had somehow come to her, made her presence in this universe known, just to assure Solar that she was there. Alive. Suffering, but alive.

 

Solar clasped her hands together, almost as if she was in prayer. Diana, she wondered, where are you?


	5. Callisto

 

Moonbyul leapt down from the Woolsthorpe as soon as they landed and made a mad dash towards the bubble dome that contained the colony they had seen from space. A low gravitational force, coupled with the natural power of the space-suit, allowed her to make large advances as she skipped towards the colony. Apprehensive, Solar followed her, keeping what she decided was a sensible distance from the excited woman.

 

As they approached the dome, Moonbyul soon realised that as the colony was located at the bottom of the crater, they would have to make their way down on foot. Jumping down was impossible; there was no strong gravitational force to pull them downwards. Moonbyul stared down from where she was stood at the edge of the crater and slowly began to inch down.

 

“Solar.” Without taking her eyes off the crumbly surface of the crater, Moonbyul proffered a hand to Solar. “Come down carefully.”

 

Solar harrumphed. “I believe I can make my way down by myself.” Stepping down from the raised rim of the crater, she planted a foot on the slope, then the other -- and immediately lost her balance, her feet skidding down and her arms pinwheeling to gain some control over herself.

 

“Hey! Watch out!” Moonbyul grabbed Solar’s forearm before it hit her face and dug her other hand into the rocky surface of the crater. Hurriedly activating her space-suit’s strengthening ability, Moonbyul managed to stop their downward slip before they both fell down.

 

“Fuck!” she exclaimed. “Didn’t I tell you to be careful? Science above. Talk about reckless.” The hand that was gripping Solar’s arm moved down to hold her hand instead. “Let’s go.”

 

Chastised, somewhat embarrassed, Solar kept mum and quietly followed Moonbyul down the side of the crater. On occasion she would glance at their clasped hands, and involuntarily a small smile would creep onto her face until she wiped it off. This continued all the way until they reached the bottom of the crater.

 

The colony itself was built on an uplift in the very middle of the crater. Essentially, the base of the colony bubble was flattened so it rested a few inches up from the rest of the original bedrock that was dented upon impact, forming a sort of odd w-shape. There was a small fence-like structure circling the colony, but it didn’t seem to serve much purpose, as it was probably just about the height of Solar’s waist. Attached to the fence was an equally small gate with a simple latch.

 

Moonbyul lifted the latch and walked through the gate.

 

From up close, it was very clear that the colony was nothing like Central. For starts, there was no impressive, imposing building like Merc HQ. There wasn’t even any large, high-rise buildings that Moonbyul could see. The colony was built close to the ground, with whatever houses there were only having the one storey. Moonbyul wouldn’t have called them houses, even -- more like rocks piled on top of each other to enclose a small space. There were fewer proper beds than there were thrown-about piles of blankets and clothes pretending to be beds.

 

The two women removed their helmets and glanced around, looking for signs of life. “Shit, it’s so cold here,” Moonbyul noted, shivering. She covered her nose and mouth with her hands, letting the self-heating suit warm her face. “Where’s everyone?”

 

“I suppose they are in hiding,” Solar whispered to Moonbyul. “It is no surprise that one would be cautious of strangers.”

 

“That makes sense.” Moonbyul inhaled deeply, then shouted: “Hey, anyone there?”

 

Solar smacked her on the arm, shocked. “Why would you do that?”

 

“Nope!” an unknown voice shouted back.

 

Solar gaped. “Why would you say that?”

 

Moonbyul grinned. She could get with this kind of friendly. “Where are ya, ya little shit?”

 

The sound of delighted giggling from behind a pile of rocks attracted her attention. Putting a finger to her lips, Moonbyul gestured at Solar to follow her as she tiptoed to the source of the sound. She pointed to one end of the rock pile, then jabbed two fingers at the pile. You go that way, and we’ll both attack at the same time.

 

At Moonbyul’s signal, both of them jumped out at the same time. Another squeal, and they watched a small figure clad in rags run away.

 

“You want a chase, huh?” Moonbyul gritted her teeth. “Then a chase is what you’re gonna get.”

 

The figure didn’t manage to get very far, mostly for two reasons -- one, they were small, and two, the colony’s boundaries were not spread out enough to allow someone to gain distance between themselves and their pursuers. In this case, the figure ran face-first into the fence that surrounded the space, allowing Moonbyul to descend onto them with evil glee.

 

“Gotcha!” She grabbed the figure by their hood and hauled them up. “Now, who are you?”

 

The figure swung around in the air until they were face-to-face with Moonbyul. Under the hood was a chubby, pink face with a cheeky grin and shining chocolate-brown eyes. His hair, a few shades darker than the colour of his eyes, poked out in tufts. He looked no more than five or six years old.

 

“Who are ya, kid?” Moonbyul asked, pretending to frown sternly.

 

“None ya business!” The child stuck out his tongue and giggled. Lifting his hands, he clapped and twisted away from Moonbyul’s grip. What landed on the ground was not a child.

 

It was a small bear cub.

 

“What the fuck?” Moonbyul yelled as the cub scampered away. Absolutely discombobulated, she turned to Solar. “Did you see that? What kinda magic trick was that?”

 

“Follow that bear!” Solar cried, racing after the disappearing cub. It took a confused Moonbyul a few seconds to gather her thoughts and give chase, but when she did, she flew like the wind. Her overwhelming sense of curiosity and adrenaline powered her movements as she leapt over piles of bedding and dodged the rocks and pebbles kicked up by the fleeing bear cub.

 

She was only an arm’s length away from the cub when something hard hit her head.

 

“Ow!”

 

Moonbyul swivelled around just in time for another sharp rock to glance off her cheek and scratch her. She slapped a hand to the bleeding cut as she glared at her attacker. “What was that for?”

 

“Why did you stop?” Solar ran up, slightly out of breath. Her eyes followed Moonbyul’s pointed finger to the origin of the attack.

 

Her mouth dropped at the sight of a woman, breathing heavily with rocks in her arms. The woman’s curly hair was shorn short, tufts of honey and caramel framing a fierce face. Like the boy, she was dressed in a hooded robe that brushed against her thighs. Her feet were bare and stained with dirt. Solar took a hopeful step forward. “Callisto.”

 

“You’re not welcome here,” the woman repeated, completely brushing Solar aside. “Not since you banished me from your group for something I did not do!” She picked out another stone from the pile in her arms and, pulling her arm back, threw it straight at Moonbyul.

 

Moonbyul caught the projectile in her hand and slowly walked towards the stranger. “I don’t know who you are and I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you can’t just throw shit at people and expect them to listen to you.”

 

“Callisto.” Solar rushed forward and put a hand on Moonbyul’s shoulder. “She isn’t her. She is human.”

 

“Human?” Callisto froze in the act of selecting another rock to throw. “No. She looks exactly like her.” She picked up a rock, but Moonbyul and Solar could see the doubt and hesitation clearly on her face.

 

“Look closely,” Solar insisted. “Diana and Moonbyul are nothing alike.”

 

Moonbyul raised her eyebrows. Leaning towards Solar, she muttered out of the corner of her mouth, “I thought you said that Diana lady and I look exactly the same.”

 

Solar shook her head. “Maybe at first. But now it is blindingly clear that you two are not the same person.” She turned her head to stare at Moonbyul. “No, not the same at all.”

 

Meanwhile, Callisto’s gaze was still fixated on Moonbyul as she examined her from a distance. A lumpy object suddenly bumped into her leg, and she dropped all her rocks when she realised what it was.

 

“Arcas!” she exclaimed, crouching down so she could fuss over the sniffling bear cub. “What happened to you?”

 

The cub growled and moaned before burrowing itself into her chest. “You were playing chase? With whom?” She pointed at Moonbyul and Solar. “With them?”

 

“Arcas,” Solar repeated the name, nodding as if she just understood something.

 

“I don’t get it.” Moonbyul nudged Solar. “What’s going on?”

 

“Arcas is my son,” Callisto said. She picked him up -- now transformed into a child and not a bear -- and, turning her back on the two women, began to walk away. She paused and looked back. “Do not follow me.”

 

Moonbyul and Solar exchanged glances behind her back. “That means we should follow her, right?” Moonbyul whispered.

 

“I believe so,” Solar replied.

 

“Okay.”

 

They followed Callisto and Arcas to what could be called, if chanced upon by a person with nothing but utmost optimism, a man-made cave. From afar, it could easily be mistaken as a pile of rocks if seen from the surface, if not for the massive hole that was dug deep into the ground. The cave -- if one was really to call it that -- was heavily padded with bedding, supposedly to keep it as warm and comfortable as possible. To Moonbyul, however, it was still freezing cold, and every breath she exhaled came out as mist.

 

How did these two people manage to live here without any proper clothes or heating, or food for that matter? She hadn’t seen any signs of food anywhere in the colony.

 

“Aren’t you hungry?” Moonbyul blurted, concerned about the serious lack of basic human necessities on the moon.

 

Before Callisto could answer, or Solar could admonish her sudden question, Arcas peeked out from behind his mother’s back. “I am!” At his mother’s subtle shake of her head, he pouted. “But I am hungry,” he muttered.

 

Moonbyul got to her feet, bending her back to accommodate the height of the cave. “Hold on. I’ll get some food for you.”

 

Solar grabbed Moonbyul’s wrist, stopping her from leaving. “That was not what we came here for. Was it?” She directed her question to Callisto who turned red-faced and quickly shook her head again.

 

“Solar.” Moonbyul’s tone was patient but dark. “You’re supposed to be a god? And you’re letting a kid go hungry and cold and whatever.” She sneered. “Maybe that’s why we stopped believing in y’all. ‘Cause it seems you gods are pretty shit people.” Shaking Solar off, she strode out of the cave and headed back towards their shuttle. Arcas, delighted by the idea of food, jumped out from behind his mother and ran after Moonbyul.

 

Callisto watched and waited until the two were out of sight before leaning back. “You’re right,” she said, clearly impressed. “She’s nothing like Diana. Nothing like any of us.” Callisto grinned. “She’s so much better.”

 

Solar looked down at her feet, shamefaced. It hurt to admit that maybe Callisto was correct, that Moonbyul’s scorn and contempt of her actions and feelings was understandable. But she could say nothing, do nothing to defend herself, not when Moonbyul risked her life not once but twice to save and protect her. The only thing she could do was nod quietly in agreement. “She’s human, after all.”

 

 

 

Moonbyul glanced at the small boy trotting beside her. When she realised that Arcas was following her, she had slowed her pace down so he could catch up. She let him babble on about life in the crater, how he and his mother woke up in the middle of the abandoned colony one day without any of their personal belongings on them. How they looked for any other sign of life, the despair his mother felt when she realised that they were the only two existing in the colony. There was no food, no water, no no people. Nothing.

 

After a while, when they were desperate for something, anything, Arcas discovered water. It was amazing, he explained with such wonderment in his eyes that Moonbyul had to smile, that one day when he was digging through the cold ground he realised that the cold hard crystals he dug up melted in his warm hands. Not only that, but that they were edible. “Lucky mom wasn’t there, you know,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Or else we would never have water. Ever.”

 

Moonbyul nodded in agreement. After all, didn’t the same thing happen to her only a while back, with her miraculously stumbling upon a treasure hoard of ice? The memory made her miss Lars and the rest of the miners terribly and elicited a heavy sigh from her.

 

“What’s wrong?” Arcas asked, tugging on Moonbyul’s space suit when she went silent. It was a simple question asked with innocence only a child could have. Oddly enough, it was that same innocence that strengthened her. If a young boy such as Arcas could still stay this positive and happy, why couldn’t she?

 

She ruffled his hair. “Nothing.” Looking up, she spotted the Woolsthorpe peeking out from behind the raised rim of the crater. “Hey, I see it.”

 

“Huh? Where?” Following the direction of Moonbyul’s finger, Arcas’s eyes lit up. “I wanna see it! The whole thing!”

 

“Um.” Moonbyul pursed her lips in thought. There were definitely working helmets, that she knew. But here weren’t any space suits that came in Arcas’s size, although she did wonder whether it was safe enough to just bundle him in one and let him waddle around. “Tell you what. I’m gonna bring some stuff over and we’ll see whether you can fit into them.”

 

Arcas grinned. “Okay!” He waved at Moonbyul as she fixed her helmet over her head and left the colony bubble.

 

Climbing back up the crater, she made her way back to the Woolsthorpe. She rummaged through the giant pile of items tucked away at the back of the shuttle, finally pulling out the bag that Mes -- or Hermes as she now knew him -- had given her. She picked up handfuls and handfuls of nutrition bars and packets of water and dumped them all in the bag, slung it over her shoulder, and headed back out, grabbing a couple of space suits and extra helmets on her way out.

 

Arcas greeted her with a delighted shriek and the food she took out of her bag with even greater glee. “Eat up,” Moonbyul said, tearing the plastic casing and offering the bar to the little boy. “It probably don’t really taste nice or nothing, but…”

 

“It’s so good!” Arcas exclaimed with his mouth full. “Can we bring it home? Then we can all eat it!”

 

How hungry must he have been to find something that tasteless so delicious, Moonbyul wondered, but did not say it aloud. “Why do you think I packed this much?” She winked at him instead and readjusted the bag over her shoulder. “Come on, let’s go.”

 

Back at the underground abode, Solar and Callisto were sitting in icy silence that was further intensified by the terrifyingly low temperature of the actual cave. Although they were facing each other, their arms were crossed in front of them -- the sentiment was more than clear. Don’t talk to me.

 

Fortunately for everyone, Arcas seemed to not have noticed this, and leapt into his mother’s arms. “Look!” He waved his nutrition bar in front of Callisto’s face with a guileless grin stretched across his face. “I have food!”

 

Callisto chuckled. “I can see that.” She met Moonbyul’s gaze and nodded. “Thank you.”

 

“No problem.” Moonbyul knelt on the ground and started unloading all the rations she managed to carry from the shuttle. “We’ve got your food bars. We’ve got your rationed water. And here” --she placed the space outfits next to the rations-- “we’ve even got some space suits and extra helmets so you can go out and explore without running out of oxygen or dying from the pressure of outer space.”

 

Callisto stared wide-eyed at the haul. “All of this… is for us?”

 

“Well, yeah.” Moonbyul side-eyed Solar who was still sitting quietly. “Any complaints?” Solar looked up at her out of the corner of her eye and shook her head before quickly looking away again.

 

Moonbyul sighed inwardly at her action. They needed to talk. She took Solar’s arm and gave Callisto a polite smile. “Sorry, do you mind if we talk outside for a bit?”

 

 

  


Once they were outside, Moonbyul and Solar stared at each other for a few seconds, both waiting for the other to make the first move. Moonbyul huffed a breath; Solar bit her lip.

 

“So,” they both started simultaneously. Moonbyul blinked. Solar inhaled sharply.

 

“You go first,” they tried again at the same time. Both women grinned; and just like that, the tension was broken. Laughter had never felt more liberating.

 

“Look,” Moonbyul said when she finally managed to curb her laughter for a moment, “look. I’m sorry I snapped at you just now. Maybe you gods have a different way of doing things, and I… You know, I just didn’t feel right about it.”

 

Solar shook her head. “No, you were right. As much as gods are reckless, so are humans compassionate. That is something we need to learn. It is something I need to learn.” She laughed and sat down on one of the piles of bedding lying about on the ground. “And for me to sulk after that telling off too… I could not have been more childish. I’m sorry.”

 

Moonbyul sat down next to Solar and petted her hand. “Apology accepted. Now. Did something happen between you and Callisto?”

 

“How did you know?”

 

Moonbyul rolled her eyes. “It’s too damn obvious, y’know that? The air between you two was, like, so thick with tension I couldn’t cut it with a high-powered laser.”

 

“She said terrible things about Diana,” Solar admitted. “Mean things, bad things. About our relationship.”

 

“But why?” Moonbyul frowned and scratched her head. “Not like you did anything to her, right?”

 

Solar laughed drily. “Innocent people often have bad things done to them, Moonbyul. Callisto and Arcas are no exception.”

 

Moonbyul cocked her head. “I don’t get it.”

 

Solar nodded wisely; this was to be expected. After all, their stories were all but gone to humankind now. “First, you should know who Diana is.”

 

 

 

As the goddess of the hunt, and of nature, Diana -- more commonly known as Artemis -- was also a virgin goddess. She had a devout following, a group of nymphs who swore to never lay with a man. Callisto, Solar said, was one of them. She was a particularly youthful nymph at the time of this story, and was madly infatuated with Diana, and would never do anything against Diana’s will.

 

And yet she did lay with a man, though not of her own volition.

 

“She was… No,” Moonbyul breathed, hands to her mouth. “She was _raped_?”

 

Solar nodded. “And by Zeus, no less. To have such a thing done to you by the king of gods is humiliating and painful, and not only that, but no one would side with you, for who would be willing to go against a powerful king?”

 

“But what does this have to do with Diana? Or with you?”

 

“Diana refused to listen to her and banished her once she realised Callisto was with child,” Solar explained. “As if everything she had done, all her love for Diana before the tragedy was forgotten. And it was not even her fault.”

 

“So Callisto thinks the same thing’s gonna happen to you? That Diana’s just playing with you the same way she was playing with her?” Moonbyul asked, slightly wary of Solar’s response.

 

“Our relationship is not a game!” Solar blustered, clearly offended, but quickly reined her temper in. “I’m sorry, but… Love should not be a game,” she repeated in a softer voice.

 

“I agree.” Moonbyul took in a deep breath, then let it out, watching her breath leave as fading mist. “But I think that like friendship, or companionship, there should be communication between both parties who are in love. What’s important is that people shouldn’t be keeping secrets from each other, or else they’ll never really be able to trust each other.”

 

Solar sat quietly, mulling over Moonbyul’s words. Once again, the human was right. But how was she to tell her about Diana taking over her body -- possessing her, really -- and speaking to her? It didn’t make any sense, not to such a scientifically based human mind such as Moonbyul’s. It didn’t even make any sense to Solar. How did she do it, and more importantly, why?

 

“Well, since I’ve said that, can’t be a hypocrite, can I?” Moonbyul chirped. “So I’ll tell you a little something about me.”

 

“What is it?”

 

“Honestly? I don’t have any memories from my childhood, or my teenage years, or anything,” Moonbyul confessed. “The only memories I have are from working on Mercury as a miner, and that’s all I’ve got. I dunno what happened before that, and truth be told, it kinda weirds me out a bit when I try to think about it. About the before.” She glanced over at Solar and grimaced. “Weird, innit?”

 

“It is strange,” Solar agreed. “And you do not know why you cannot recall your past?”

 

Moonbyul lifted her shoulders and dropped them. “Nope.”

 

“Strange indeed,” Solar murmured. “But do remember -- the past does not always define you. Perhaps not having those memories is for the better.”

 

“I guess,” Moonbyul sighed.

 

“I need to tell you something as well,” Solar admitted in a quiet voice. “Before, when we were on the way here… Diana, she talked to me. She talked to me through you.”

 

Moonbyul frowned and shook her head. “What?”

 

Before Solar could explain further, a small figure leapt onto Moonbyul’s back and tackled her to the ground. “Are you done yet?” Arcas turned back and grinned at Solar, his short arms wrapped loosely around Moonbyul’s neck. “You were taking soooooo long!” he whined as he flopped his entire weight onto the poor blue-haired woman beneath him.

 

“Kid, has anyone told you how heavy you are?” Moonbyul grunted. “I’m gonna roll around and squish you like a bug if you don’t get off me.”

 

Arcas blew a raspberry at her but shuffled off her back. “You’re not good at being scary, are you?” Like the bear cub he was, he scampered over to Solar and climbed onto her lap. “The other lady that came was way scarier.”

 

“Lady?” Both Moonbyul and Solar stared at him. “What lady?”

 

“She is dangerous.” Callisto stepped out of her cave with a thick blanket wrapped around her that swooshed around with every step. “Dark hair, dangerous eyes. She must not know where you are, and more importantly, who you are.”

 

“Did she carry a whip of some sort?” Solar pressed.

 

Callisto frowned. “How did you know?”

 

Solar shot up from her seat, causing Arcas to leap from her lap. “Tell me where she is. This woman… She knows where Diana is.”

 

“And how do you know that?” Callisto demanded.

 

“Because Diana spoke to me. Through Moonbyul. She showed me visions. I felt what she had felt, wherever she was, held in captivity.” Solar curled her hand into a fist. “She was in pain.”

 

Something in Callisto’s eyes flickered. Whether it was worry or disdain, Solar could not tell. She pressed on. “Please tell me where I can find this woman.”

 

“Tell us where this lady is,” Moonbyul agreed, placing a supportive hand on Solar’s back.

 

“I am telling you she is dangerous! She could kill you with a glare if she wanted to,” Callisto insisted. “Why do you not listen to me?”

 

“Because we need answers, Callisto, and I am not going to stay here and hide like you!” Solar erupted, her eyes burning gold. Callisto froze, her heart thumping erratically against her ribs. She could feel her throat closing up under Solar’s terrifying gaze, and for the first time since meeting the young goddess, she felt fear. Fear similar to that she had felt when she set her eyes on the black-haired woman with the whip.

 

“Very well!” Callisto spit out. The fire in Solar’s eyes slowly extinguished, leaving speckles of burnt gold in her brown eyes. “I overheard her saying that her next stop was Io. It is another moon, nearest to Jupiter’s planet. She’s headed there.”

 

She picked Arcas up and turned her back to the duo. “If you really leave for Io, please don’t ever come back.”

 

Arcas waved forlornly as he was forcibly taken away. “Please come back!” he shouted. “I’ll be very sad if you don’t.”

 

Moonbyul waved back at him, a determined look settling on her face when she turned to Solar. “Io it is, then.”

 

 

 

Solar paced the length of the Woolsthorpe, only pausing to look out of windows or out of the giant glass windshield-like screen. There were so many questions to be answered, she knew, and she only had one lead: this mysterious, and certainly dangerous, dark-haired woman Diana had showed her.

 

Turning towards the cockpit, she watched Moonbyul fiddle with the galaxy map that Sal had given them. It didn’t feel right having the blue-haired pilot fly her to Io, considering how potentially unsafe this expedition was going to be. After what happened on Hygieia, she could not bear to see Moonbyul in that state again, wrapped head to toe in bandages and scarred and wounded all over her body. And if it happened again on Io, there was no Sal around to help.

 

“If - no, when we find this woman, you should leave immediately,” she informed Moonbyul. “If she really is as dangerous as Callisto said, then you will not be safe. This is a risk you should not take.”

 

Moonbyul chuckled, highly amused. “Solar, ever since I met you, my life’s been in danger a lot, you know that, right?”

 

“Exactly my point.” Solar stopped beside Moonbyul’s seat at the cockpit and placed a hand on its armrest. Sighing, she stared out at the smaller, nearly insignificant moons whizz by as the Woolsthorpe swept past gossamer rings of dust that encircled Jupiter. “You have risked a lot for me, nearly dying, even, and… I do not want to put you in that position again.”

 

Moonbyul leaned back in her chair and tilted her head to look up at Solar. “Did I say it’s a bad thing? Solar, let’s be real here: I wouldn’t be exploring the galaxy right now if I never met you. You’ve changed my entire fucking life, and it’s awesome. Wouldn’t trade it for a billion credits.”

 

She lightly smacked Solar’s arm. “Besides, you’re the first ever friend that looked my age. I say look, of course, because you’re probably as old as Galileo himself.” Cackling, she swivelled around in her seat to check her map.

 

“Moonbyul, I am being serious.”

 

Sighing, Moonbyul swivelled around to face Solar again. “So am I. You need to realise this: you’re not forcing me into anything. Helping you find Diana, flying around in an epic world-renowned shuttle, all this stuff -- I chose to do it. And I’m telling you now, I ain’t gonna just ditch you with some random scary lady just to save my ass. That’s what I’m choosing to do too.”

 

She winked at Solar. “Now sit down, we’re fast approaching and I need to focus to land this baby.”

 

 

 

The first thing both women noticed when they landed on Io was the significant difference in temperature between this moon and Callisto’s moon. Despite wearing their thermo-regulated space suits, they could feel the blistering heat piercing their skin. To Moonbyul, it was almost as if she was back on Mercury again.

 

Like Callisto, there was also an oxygen bubble surrounding the moon despite the lack of human presence, almost as if it was previously inhabited.

 

“Look there!” Solar tugged on Moonbyul’s arm, drawing her attention to a large group of unknown machines in the distance huddled together near a mountain. “What is that?”

 

Moonbyul squinted, trying to discern their purpose. “Can’t say for sure from here. Let’s go closer.”

 

As they headed towards the machines, treading carefully in case the dangerous woman from Solar’s vision was still around, Moonbyul felt a rumble underneath her feet. She immediately stopped and held up a hand. “Did you feel that?”

 

“Feel what?” Solar asked just before another rumble echoed around them. It was almost as if the ground beneath their feet was growing hotter and hotter, and even… turning into liquid?

 

“Moonbyul, the earth! It’s melting!”

 

Moonbyul glanced down and pulled Solar aside. Scanning the ground, she noticed cracks propagating around them. Bright, glowing orange liquid started to pour out of the cracks and snake towards them. “Shit, it’s lava! We gotta get out of here, now!”

 

Taking Solar’s hand in hers, Moonbyul sprinted away from the lava as quick as she could. The faster they ran, the more cracks that grew around and under them, causing vast amounts of magma to erupt. It would have been impossible to survive the lava if not for their space-suits, but they eventually managed to outrun the flow of lava and reach the machines that Solar had spotted.

 

Upon closer inspection, these machines were very familiar to Moonbyul. “These are mining drills,” she announced, climbing into the driver’s seat of one of the machines to further examine it. “For… iron. That’s what Io’s made of. Iron and silicate rock.”

 

“As expected of a Moonbyul, I suppose,” a husky female voice drawled out. Shocked and surprised by the sudden entrance of a stranger, they whipped around to see a curvaceous dark-haired figure approaching them in a white space-suit. Solar’s quick eyes spotted the mole on her cheek, while Moonbyul’s attention was drawn to the whip coiled on her belt.

 

“Oh shit,” Moonbyul whispered.

 

“Oh shit indeed,” the dark-haired woman agreed with a teasing grin. “Hello, Moonbyul-yi. I missed you.”


	6. Space

 

“I don’t know you,” Moonbyul stated as she climbed down from the machine, inwardly fighting to keep herself calm. It would have sounded silly a few weeks ago, but she swore she could feel pure hostility radiating off the black-haired woman.

 

Solar stepped forward. “I do. You’re the woman who knows where Diana is.”

 

The woman glanced at Solar with impassive eyes. Not a single flicker of recognition or reaction at Diana’s name. “And who is that supposed to be?” She waved Solar away. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t know who you are anyway, nor do I care. I’m here for you.” She pointed and grinned at Moonbyul.

 

“Like I said, lady, I don’t know you.” Moonbyul reached for Solar’s arm, bracing herself and preparing to run away at the first possible opportunity.

 

Unfortunately for her, their adversary was more vigilant than anticipated. The woman quickly lashed out with her whip, catching Moonbyul on the back of her hand. “You really think you’re going to run away from us again?” she asked, lips curled into a sneer. “You got lucky the first time. There will not be a second.”

 

“I swear on Galileo’s balls, lady, I have no idea who you are and what you’re talking about!” Moonbyul shouted, confused and frustrated.

 

The dark-haired woman stared at Moonbyul. She cocked her head to the side, deep in thought. Then she grinned. “Will this jog your memory, then?” She lashed out again, the whip cutting through the air and slicing the gauze patch on Moonbyul’s forehead in half. She jabbed her finger at the exposed scar. “That is clear evidence that you are property of the Juris. And since I’m part of the Juris… It means you’re my _property_.”

 

Moonbyul gritted her teeth. “I’m no one’s property.”

 

“Oh, really? Does the name Hwasa mean nothing to you anymore?” The dark-haired woman stepped forward and kicked Moonbyul to the ground, pushing Solar aside as she did so.

 

Pinned under her boot, Moonbyul struggled to move, but every single movement seemed to grow more sluggish until she was lay limp. “What… did you do… to me?”

 

Hwasa coolly coiled her whip back and fastened it to her belt. “This was a little invention of yours, don’t you remember? A weapon that you made for me to keep people under control.”

 

“...I made a weapon?” As her world slowly turned dark, Moonbyul stared up at her attacker, fighting to remember, to understand. A single thought came to her with a jolt from the dark depths of her brain, a memory that was long lost of a smirking woman proudly receiving her newly made whip embedded with microscopic needles. “Hwasa. I remember you,” she breathed before passing out.

 

Hwasa smiled. “There we go. Time to go home.” She picked Moonbyul up by the suit and hauled the limp woman over her shoulder before turning around and walking away.

 

Sitting on the ground, Solar shook her head, regaining her senses. She rubbed at her eyes, wincing as the heat from the volcanic ash stung her exposed skin. Then, remembering where she was and what she was doing, quickly looked around for Moonbyul. She spied a retreating figure in the distance and scrambled to her feet. “Moonbyul!” she shouted, immediately breaking into a run. She grabbed the back of Hwasa’s suit and yanked back as hard as she could, but the woman did not move a muscle.

 

Hwasa glanced back and rolled her eyes. “What made you think that I’d even budge at a weak attempt like that?”

 

Growling, Solar lunged at Hwasa. Hwasa simply turned to one side, causing Solar to narrowly miss her target. “Look, you’re never going to be any match for me,” Hwasa stated. “Just give up. Leave. I don’t have any business with you.”

 

“No! You cannot take her away!” Solar grabbed Hwasa’s leg and desperately clung on.

 

Exasperated with the woman’s weak antics, Hwasa fished around in a pocket and came up with two small metal balls. She dropped them onto the ground face-down and stamped on them. Immediately the balls grew ten times in size, and from the sides shot out metal limbs resembling those of a spider, with claws that extended at the ends. Two circular eye-like discs appeared at one end of the body and flashed red, lasers shooting out from them, searching for their target.

 

Hwasa pointed at Solar. “Attack.”

 

The spider robots sprung into action, leaping at Solar and taking her down in one fell swoop. She lashed out, catching the robots on their hard body, but only succeeded in bruising her knuckles. As she struggled, pinned under the robots, she could see Hwasa walking away with Moonbyul over her shoulder past the horizon.

 

“No! Moonbyul!” Solar cried, shoving at the robots. She would not have someone she loved taken away from her.

 

_Not again_.

 

Solar began to feel something bubbling within her, very much like the magma that had once again started to seep out of the cracks. It burned like the sensation of touching the sun with bare hands, swelled like the crest of the sea over the shore, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

 

A deep growl emerged from her throat. Her skin began to quickly rise in temperature, intense heat emanating off her entire body and turning the metallic robots bright blue. Liquid steel fell in drops as she gripped the robots’ legs with her red-hot hands. Her eyes glowed bright gold, and with a terrifying roar she she blew the robots up to bits. She slowly got to her feet, body still burning bright as she walked away, leaving only charred circuitry and melted metal in her wake.

 

“Wait for me, Moonbyul. I’m coming.”

 

 

 

 

Stirring, Moonbyul found herself lying in the dark. Upon trying to reach out and get her bearings, she realised she did not have full control of her limbs. Her first attempt at lifting her arms failed; they remained as limp as wet spaghetti. Taking a deep breath, she tried again, stretching out as far as she could with whatever little energy she had in her… until her fingers met smooth, cold metal. She ran her hands along it, finding that the metal ran around and over her, as if she was contained in some box.

 

_Okay, Byul, don’t panic_ , she told herself, trying to calm her rapidly beating heart. _If you’re locked in somewhere, there’s gotta be a way to unlock it and get out. Right?_

 

With that in mind, she began to feel around, pressing into every nook and cranny she could find. After a while, almost at the brink of giving up, her sensitive fingers found a small, nearly negligible latch just overhead. Years of figuring out the exact mechanics of dozens of machines finally came into fruition when she skilfully wiggled the miniature latch about until it quietly clicked into place.

 

“Yes!” Moonbyul allowed herself one tiny fist pump before her arms went limp again. She blinked wearily and sighed from exhaustion. Whatever Hwasa had done to her was taking effect, fast. Her eyes began to droop, and she had to shake her head to keep herself awake.

 

_You gotta get out of here, Byul, you’re almost there_. Nodding to herself, she steeled herself and tried pushing at the latch. A small stream of light poured through the crack where the lid separated from the rest of the box she was trapped in. Encouraged, her spirits lifted, she gathered all the energy in her body and pushed! Until the lid of the box swung open to reveal more darkness.

 

_Dammit_. Edging herself out of the box, she stumbled onto her hands and knees and, deciding to stay how she was, started to crawl around the room blind. It took her a long while of arduous, exhausting crawling until the crown of her head hit a wall. Wincing, she rubbed at her head and cursed silently. She pressed her hands against the wall and with careful movements pulled herself up until she was propped against the wall. Once again she slid her hands over its smooth surface, searching for a door, or even better, a light switch.

 

To her utter surprise -- not really, she admitted to herself once her excitement wore off, it was to be expected -- she did in fact find a light switch only a few steps away. She pressed it and watched the lights overhead flicker to life.

 

When her eyes adjusted to the obscene brightness of the fluorescent lights, Moonbyul found herself in a storage room of sorts. There were some unlabelled cardboard boxes in a corner, a few built-in shelves full of unknown items and/or weapons, and two long metal containers.

 

The lid of one of the containers was open. That, Moonbyul thought to herself with derision, is neither a comfortable nor a decent-looking box to lock people captive in at all. She tottered over to one of the transparent display shelves to further examine the items contained within.

 

The shelves were built tall so that they could hold as many weapons and gadgets as possible. And there were many, many gadgets. She slid aside one of the glass doors left unlocked and, reaching in, took out a small metal ball decorated with grooves and circular indentations.

 

“What are you supposed to be?” she asked the ball. It did not reply. Staring at the ball, she rotated it, trying to figure out its use, or even how to activate whatever it was supposed to be.

 

“Well, whatever.” She tucked it into the pocket of her space-suit and continued to rummage around. Over the course of minutes she managed to discover a plethora of gadgets that she did not know how to activate… and a penknife.

 

“Huh.” She folded the knife and slid it into her sleeve, just in case. “Right, let’s get outta here then.”

 

Turning away from the cache of unknown contraptions, she managed two steps before a crushing pain bloomed in her head, causing her to groan and collapse where she stood. She clutched her head, willing the pain to just go away. It seared like lightning into the scar above her left eye and burned like a thousand fires. Crying from the unbearable pain, the only thing Moonbyul could do was curl up into a ball and press a shaky hand to her scar.

 

“Someone,” she whispered hoarsely, curling up in the fetal position, “please help me. Please.”

 

The little ball she had pilfered rolled out of her pocket, and she watched as it rolled, unhindered, until it lightly tapped against a wall. The ball shivered and unfurled itself into the form of a robotic hedgehog.

 

Still in pain, Moonbyul gaped at it. “What the actual fuck.”

 

Wobbling on its tiny legs, the hedgehog sniffed -- if a robot could sniff -- and scurried towards her. It butted its head against her forehead as if trying to console her. Odd as it may be, it did give her a sense of comfort and made her feel a little bit better. Propping herself up on her elbows, she ran her fingers over its spines, feeling out its casted shape and cold smoothness, forcing herself to think about mining for the materials and manufacturing the miniature hedgehog.

 

Anything to distract her from the pain.

 

As she petted the hedgehog, she felt one of the spines shift under her touch and prick her hand. Startled, she quickly withdrew her hand and stared in surprise at the needle sticking out of her palm.

 

She glared at the hedgehog still nuzzling its nose against her other hand. “Dude, really?” Shifting, she yanked the needle out of her palm and chucked it aside. A drop of blood dripped from the puncture wound onto the floor, and the hedgehog rushed at it. Leaning down, it touched its nose to the blood droplet. Its eyes flashed red, and with a shudder, curled up into a spiky ball and shot itself towards Moonbyul, embedding its spines into her hands.

 

Moonbyul yelped and flailed in pain. Pushing herself into a sitting position -- not easy with a spiky metal animal stuck on one’s hand -- she growled at the hedgehog that by now had unfurled itself and was lying on her hand. “Not cool, little dude.”

 

Just as she was about to throw the hedgehog as far away from her as she could, she felt the pain in her hand receding, like a soothing balm being applied on a burn. And like the sea as it washes away from the shore, she could feel -- actually feel -- her body gaining strength. Her headache slowly subsided, and the feverish heat within her was no more.

 

She gaped at the hedgehog nestled in her palm. “D-did you do this?”

 

The hedgehog blinked at her, and with the grace of a toddler, tumbled out of her hand and landed on the floor. It scurried off, headed towards an seemingly normal wall… then squeezed its metal body through a nearly invisible gap at the joint where wall met floor.

 

Intrigued, in pursuit of the hedgehog, Moonbyul got on all fours and crawled towards the space where the hedgehog had disappeared. Flattening herself, she squinted in search of the small sliver of light coming from the gap. She poked at the gap and felt, just very slightly, the wall give way under her touch.

 

She grinned. _Very, very clever_.

 

Taking this as encouragement, she hurriedly jumped to her feet and leaned her weight on the door. Digging her heels into the floor, she pushed with whatever strength the hedgehog had given her.

 

The door opened under the force, swinging aside so she toppled through the doorway. Fortunately, she was quick enough to regain her balance, grabbing the nearest object available to steady herself.

 

She found herself standing in a long corridor -- plain, unadorned except for a large insignia painted on the wall. On one side of the corridor were doors; on the other, exactly four window panels. She pressed her face against one of the glass panels and peered out. Judging by the cracks formed by lava eruption and the rocks that formed upon cooling, she guessed that she was still on Io. Definitely a good sign, she knew. Better to be kidnapped in a familiar enough place than stranded in space alone.

 

And maybe, she thought to herself, maybe Solar would find her. Or if she managed to get out of here, wherever she was, she would find Solar instead.

 

 

 

 

The woman on Moonbyul’s mind was currently tracking Hwasa’s footsteps, her keen eyes noticing every fine detail needed to hunt down her quarry. This exercise proved itself extremely difficult, as lava may erupt where a dusty footprint would be, covering the track with bubbling magma and breaking her focus. She knew that every second wasted having to look for Hwasa’s tracks again was a second closer to possibly losing Moonbyul forever. And who knew where Hwasa would take her?

 

It would be basically impossible for her to chase after Hwasa, too, if she really decided to fly away from Io with Moonbyul. How would she conduct an inter-planetary chase if she didn’t know how to operate a space shuttle?

 

Huffing and puffing and her head a whirlpool of worries, Solar almost missed the rather large spaceship standing just a few paces away. And it was, she realised, really quite ginormous, with all its windows glittering and its ellipsoid body standing on bent leg-like appendages.

 

This had to be it.

 

She did a quick jog around the spaceship, trying to find a way into it without alerting anyone in the ship and keeping a lookout for Hwasa at the same time. She ducked and weaved under the window panes lest someone peeked out of one of them and spotted her. Try as she may, she just could not find a single way into the spaceship.

 

How did people enter without a single door to be found? Crawling on her hands and knees, she burrowed under the spaceship, her fingers digging into the underside to look for kinks, but to no avail. The ship was as sturdy and impenetrable as the damn Labyrinth of Crete.

 

Grunting in frustration, Solar punched the belly of the ship, rapping her knuckles against the hard steel frame. Unsurprisingly, her knuckles immediately turned a blistering red colour, and she yelped in pain. “Oh my father, that hurts!” she snapped at the ship… Then punched the ship in the exact same spot again, even harder. “Just open, will you?”

 

Above her, the ship shuddered to life. Jolting in shock, Solar immediately started backing away from the ship, wiggling out from under it as it swayed on its spindly legs. She gaped in amazement as the spaceship rose to its full height, standing at a height at least twice of hers. The part of the ship’s belly where she had foolishly punched it let out a frothy hissing sound. A rectangular seam slowly became visible as light began to shine through the growing gap. The seam grew and grew until the rectangle became a platform that descended rather majestically before her.

 

Standing there with her mouth agape, Solar nearly failed to notice the pair of boots standing on the platform. She quickly scurried away, hiding behind one of the legs of the spaceship, and watched as a figure clad in a plain white spacesuit nimbly hopped off the platform. The figure -- gender unidentifiable due to the looseness of the spacesuit and the helmet over their head -- placed a hand on the side of their helmet and spoke in a garbled voice. They waited a few moments, presumably for a reply, then dashed off.

 

This was the opportunity she was waiting for. Solar took her chance and leaped onto the platform. As it began to ascend, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. If Moonbyul wasn’t here, she would have made a huge mistake. But her instincts were telling her that Moonbyul was definitely on this spaceship.

 

She had to be.

 

 

 

 

Moonbyul sat bewildered in a corner of a brightly lit bathroom. Just moments ago she was wandering the quiet corridors of the spaceship, searching for the hedgehog that had somehow vanished from sight. Opening all the doors didn’t do her any good; all she found was an assortment of bedrooms, lounge rooms, an excessively large gym, and one cleaning closet. The last door she found led to another corridor, and seeing no other direction to go but forward, she had continued on.

 

The next door she opened led to a bathroom, equipped with a toilet, a luxurious bathtub, a large sink, and a very abstract aesthetic. A plain, undecorated mirror was propped on the wall above the sink, holding its own amongst abstract paintings that graced the walls of the room. Moonbyul looked behind her, back into the dark and narrow corridor with its many doors, and then back at the brilliant washroom. “Huh. Weird.”

 

Just as she stepped into the bathroom, the floor beneath her feet began to rumble and tilt, Moonbyul swaying with it. The rapidly rising ground caused her to topple over, and she tucked herself away in a corner just in case things began to fall.

 

She waited until the movement of the spaceship, rising and falling like the chest of a sleeping giant, came to a halt. “What was that?” she wondered, getting to her feet.

 

Bewildered, she left the artistic bathroom. Just outside was the little metal hedgehog from before, curled up into a ball and rolling around. When it spotted her, it quickly unfurled itself and sniffed at her boots.

 

“There you are. Where did you go? I couldn’t find you at all,” Moonbyul reprimanded it as she crouched down to pick it up. The hedgehog whined and scuttled away from her touch.

 

“Hey, what was that about?” Moonbyul complained, following the hedgehog as it made its way down the corridor. She turned the corner, keeping her eyes on the robotic animal. It turned into a ball and rolled until it bumped into a pair of boots. The hedgehog, squealing, scampered in circles around the boots.

 

Moonbyul glanced up, her eyes tracking up from the oddly familiar looking boots up to their owner’s face. That long pink hair was unmistakable, and when she turned to look at Moonbyul, the fire in blazing gold eyes instantly fizzled out, settling back to their original, friendly brown.

 

Both women stood there, dumbstruck, both unable to make the first move. Moonbyul realised she had been unconsciously holding her breath, and she exhaled, relieved. She attempted a lopsided grin and raised an awkward hand in greeting. “Hey.”

 

“Hello,” Solar whispered, not believing her luck. She took a shaky step forward, then sprinted towards Moonbyul, wrapping her in a tight embrace. “I found you. I actually found you,” she mumbled into Moonbyul’s shoulder.

 

Moonbyul hesitated -- but only for a few seconds -- before she returned the hug. Solar was so warm and her touch so tender Moonbyul could almost sink into a deep, comfortable sleep. Then she remembered where they were and jerked back. “What are you doing here? We’re on Hwasa’s shuttle! It’s not safe.”

 

Solar frowned. “I know. But I had to find you.”

 

“Well… Wait. But how did you get in here?”

 

Solar pointed behind her. “There was an opening under the shuttle. I saw someone leave the shuttle and came in here before it closed.”

 

“So you know where the exit is?” Moonbyul grabbed her hand excitedly. “What are we waiting for, then? Let’s get out of here.”

 

As Moonbyul followed Solar to the exit, a thought crossed her mind. “But how did you know where I was? This spaceship’s pretty big, you know.”

 

Solar pointed to the hedgehog running alongside them in answer. Moonbyul laughed in disbelief and winked at the hedgehog. “You seem to really be saving our asses today, aren’t ya?”

 

Solar pointed at a door before them. “This one! I came in from this room.”

 

As she reached for the door, the hedgehog started to shiver, and it uttered a terrified squeak. Its eyes flashed red and it scratched at Moonbyul’s leg. Moonbyul scooped its trembling body up.

 

“Is there something wrong?” Solar asked.

 

Moonbyul glanced at the hedgehog in her hands, then at Solar. “I think it’s telling us to not go in there.”

 

Solar cocked her head. “Why?”

 

Moonbyul narrowed her eyes and hushed Solar. Leaning forward, she pressed her ear against the door. Her eyes widened when she heard the sound of muted conversation from the other side.

 

“Do you hear something?” Solar asked.

 

Moonbyul nodded and pressed a finger to her lips. “Voices,” she whispered. “We can’t go in. We’ll get caught. Gotta go somewhere else.”

 

“But this is the only exit,” Solar argued.

 

“Then we gotta stay here,” Moonbyul hissed back. “Don’t worry. If Hwasa really does know where Diana is, then she’ll basically lead us to her. Ain’t that great?”

 

“Well, yes, but…” How could Solar tell her that it still didn’t make it right, that Moonbyul’s safety was more important than her finding Diana? After meeting Callisto, Solar started to have her doubts regarding Diana. She didn’t even remember why she was so desperate to find her. Was Diana really her lover, or just someone pretending to be one for her own amusement?

 

Why did relationships have to be so frustratingly confusing?

 

“Hey, you okay?” Moonbyul gently touched her shoulder. “Look, I hear them coming. We gotta go hide somewhere.”

 

Taking Solar’s hand again, Moonbyul led her back to the storage room where she had woken up in and sat her down. “This room should be pretty safe. It doesn’t look like anyone really comes in here, and if they do, the hedgehog will alert us.” She peered at Solar’s face again. “You ain’t looking so well. You okay?”

 

“I’m… just nervous, I think. And I’m not very sure what happens after I find Diana. What will happen to us?”

 

“I guess you’ll both kinda run away or something. Escape? I mean, you could try to assimilate into society and work and stuff, right?” Moonbyul laughed at the idea of Solar attempting to work at a mine.

 

“Not Diana and me,” Solar said quietly. “I meant you and me.”

 

“Oh. Well.” Moonbyul scratched her head in thought. “We’ll still be friends, right? So I guess I’d just be sticking around after everything.”

 

Solar smiled at her and stuck out her little finger. “Promise?”

 

Moonbyul nodded and intertwined their little fingers together. “Promise.”

 

 

 

* * *

extra author notes: i wrote the latter half of this chapter while listening non-stop to Sam Kim's [Sun and Moon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOHG8iUnqHU). it's just kind of really the vibe i was going for at the end when they met again. that's all. pls listen to it his latest album's beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys, thanks so much for reading. i know it's been a while since i updated - trust me, i would have updated sooner if i could. sad thing is, i've been majorly bogged down by reports this entire uni semester and my finals in less than a week. but feelsbad if i didn't update for ages and ages so i sat myself down and wrote the other half of this chapter today, and lucky for me, it just came out naturally after weeks of writing block. (also writing reports just makes you reallllly want to not write at all. sad times.
> 
> but once again, thank you, dear readers, for supporting this story and leaving kudos and comments. it really does mean a lot to me, and i actually do screenshot some of those comments and save them in my comp/phone so i can look at them when i'm feeling tired. you're really a great source of energy and positivity, and i'm really grateful for all your support. <3


	7. Memory

 

Solar worriedly glanced at the woman shivering in her arms. Not long after they had fled into the storage room, Moonbyul had started to show symptoms of sickness, her face growing pale and her body slowly resisting movement. What exactly had been inflicted on her, Solar could not tell. She was not the goddess of medicine -- how she wished that Hygieia was with them again. Maybe then Moonbyul wouldn’t be in such a sorry state, leaning against Solar’s shoulder as they sat there on the cold, dark floor.

 

“It’s too cold in here, isn’t it?” Moonbyul asked, teeth chattering.

 

“It is,” Solar replied, body blazing warm inside her suit. She held Moonbyul a little closer to her, hoping to share the warmth with her somehow. “Where do you suppose we are going?”

 

“Hmm.” Moonbyul frowned in thought. “Juris HQ? I honestly don’t know, but that would be my best guess.”

 

“And where would that be?”

 

Moonbyul rolled her eyes. “Like I’d know. I’ve never been there. But that’s where all the big-shots go, like the head honcho of the miners back on Mercury, they gotta go there to report and talk about stuff and attend stupid meetings. And then they always come back with either a pissed off face or a stupid grin. Didn’t matter to us anyway, all we had going for us was more work.” She rolled over and winced. “Science above, every bone in my body aches so much.”

 

Solar looked at her helplessly. From her suit pocket the metal hedgehog stuck out its head and scurried over to Moonbyul. She glanced down at it. “Don’t suppose you could do something about the pain again, huh, little guy?”

 

The hedgehog whined and curled up on her stomach. Sighing, she ran her hand over its quills. “Guessed as much.”

 

There they were, alone together in the dreary storage room. Solar found her restless hands at Moonbyul’s hair, stroking it slowly and playing with the locks of midnight blue. She couldn’t lie to herself that the gesture was to soothe Moonbyul’s pain -- it was selfish, but she knew she was doing it for herself too. After a while, Moonbyul’s body grew heavy on her shoulder and side as she fell asleep, and Solar wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her even closer. 

 

How she wished she was stronger. How she wished she could protect instead of always having to be protected, to be able to provide safety to Moonbyul instead of always dragging her into danger. And now here Moonbyul was, in her arms, sick and helpless because of  her . She was thoroughly disgusted with herself, with her utter uselessness whenever they were in critical situations. 

 

Just as Solar was about to berate herself to the ground, her sharp ears picked up voices from the other side of the door. One of them she immediately recognised as Hwasa’s, and the other… well, not so much. She strained to listen in from her position, taking care not to wake Moonbyul as she did so. The person conversing with Hwasa was definitely a female. Perhaps the woman was the figure Solar had seen leaving the spaceship just now, she wondered.

 

There was only one way to find out, and Solar was not looking forward to it.

 

Fortunately for the both of them, the voices grew softer, as if the two women on the other side of the door were leaving. For now, Solar and Moonbyul were safe -- or as safe as one could ever be while still in the enemies’ clutches. Breathing a sigh of relief, Solar eased Moonbyul away from her shoulder, propping her up against the wall so she could stand up and stretch her legs. With apprehensive footsteps she approached the door and pressed her ear against it, straining her ears to catch any sign of Hwasa’s presence.

 

Solar did not even realise that she had fallen asleep until she jolted awake at the sensation of someone gently trying to push the door open. Glancing over, she noted with some concern that Moonbyul had not moved a muscle. But she couldn’t rush over to check on her, not when someone was trying to enter the room. So Solar leaned her full body weight on the door, trying her best to prevent the other person from entering.

 

Whoever was on the other side of the door was terribly strong. Solar prayed to all the gods and goddesses that it was not Hwasa. The person on the other side suddenly released all pressure on the door, causing it to swing wide open.

 

Solar fell forward with the momentum of the door. Her hands broke her fall, and she came face-to-face with a pair of white boots.

 

“Woah. Who are  you ?” An extremely surprised voice asked. Solar looked up to see a young woman , no more than twenty-two years of age, staring down at her curiously.  The woman bent down and offered her a hand. “You good?”

 

Solar stared at the hand suspiciously. This woman seemed a bit too kind to a total stranger who had snuck on-board and now was essentially trespassing on their spacecraft. Offering the woman a cautious smile, Solar backed away and stood up, dusting herself off. 

 

“Um.” Looking very put out, the stranger retracted her hand and scratched her head. Now that her sight was not obscured by backlight, Solar could clearly see the stranger’s features. The woman was pretty -- not just simply pretty, but in a very uniquely cute sort of way -- and, when the left corner of her lips twitched up in an awkward smile, a deep dimple stretched itself into existence on her cheek. 

 

“So, um, where did you come from?” The pretty stranger asked, tucking a curl of blonde hair behind her ear. She leaned to her left, peering into the darkened storage area where Solar had appeared from. Her eyes widened in utter shock. 

 

“Byul!”

 

The blonde stranger dashed past Solar and ran straight towards Moonbyul. Kneeling on the floor, she pressed her one hand against Moonbyul’s forehead, then checked her pulse. “Oh, Byul, what happened?”

 

Solar warily approached them. “You know Moonbyul.”

 

“Of course!” The stranger nodded, still patting Moonbyul down and checking her symptoms. “She’s our friend.”

 

“Our?” Solar glared at the stranger. “You are referring to the woman named Hwasa as well, are you not?”

 

The stranger nodded again, only half-listening. She sat back, worry radiating off her face. “Gods, what did she do to Byul?” Leaping up, the stranger strode towards one of the wall-mounted cupboards and, rifling about, took out a box marked ‘First-aid’.

 

Crouching back down next to Moonbyul, she opened the box and took out a syringe and ampoule after examining its contents. She stuck the syringe needle into the ampoule and drew the piston back, then leaned forward and placed the syringe against the inner side of Moonbyul’s right elbow.

 

“Wait!” Solar shot out her hand and grabbed the syringe. She glared at the stranger. “What do you think you are doing?”

 

“I could say the same about you, you know,” the stranger replied, annoyance showing clear on her face. She jerked the syringe back. “I’m trying to help Byul. How about you?”

 

“I-” Solar’s words stuck in her throat. What  was she trying to do? To protect Moonbyul, she supposed, however she could. “I cannot allow you to harm her.”

 

The stranger sighed and with a quick jerk extracted her hand from Solar’s strong grip. Then, without any warning, she jabbed the syringe into her own arm and pushed the plunger. “I would never ever harm Byul. Please trust me,” she pleaded.

 

Solar was stunned, to say the least. Never in her life -- and she had lived a long, long life -- did she ever meet someone as tenacious as this random blonde woman. When she had stabbed herself with the syringe, she did not even hesitate or flinch, and her eyes shone only with determination and compassion for Moonbyul. The stranger had shown that, in a span of only a few minutes, she was essentially everything that Solar wanted so very badly to be. “A-alright,” she managed.

 

“Good.” The blonde took out another similar ampoule and syringe and injected the medication into Moonbyul’s arm. From the first-aid kit she also took out a small plaster and neatly patted it onto the miniscule puncture mark. 

 

Her job done, she rose back up to her full height -- of which Solar noted wasn’t that much at all -- and offered a grin at Solar. “She should wake up in a while feeling much better, so don’t worry!”

 

A quick check on Moonbyul indicated that, indeed, Moonbyul was definitely showing some immediate signs of improvement. For one, her temperature had begun to stabilize, and Solar noticed she had stopped shivering. And although it might not have been easily discernible even by the goddess of medicine herself, to Solar’s eyes the relaxation of Moonbyul’s sleeping face by just a few degrees was unmistakable. 

 

“I see,” Solar breathed out in relief. She smiled back. “Thank you so much.”

 

The stranger shrugged. “No problem.” She fiddled with the left sleeve of her spacesuit and frowned at the tiny display screen embedded in it. “Well, that was fast.”

 

“What is?”

 

The blonde woman closed her eyes, considered her options, then opened them. Crouching down next to Solar, she took her hand and gripped it firmly. “You gotta listen to me and do as I say. When we land back home in like five minutes, you need to get out of here immediately. Do you know where the exit is?”

 

Solar nodded.

 

“Good. I’ll try to distract Hwasa as long as I can so you two can escape. Once you have, you’ll find yourself in one of the Juris airstrips. It’s a big, open space with lots of other spacecraft. Go into the main building, follow the signage to the main healing bay, and hide there until I come to find you. Okay?”

 

Solar nodded again.

 

“Great. Awesome.” The stranger got up again to leave.

 

“Wait!” Solar called out. The stranger turned. “My name is Solar. I haven’t asked you what yours was.”

 

The stranger grinned. “Nice to meet you, Solar. I’m Wheein.”

 

 

 

Solar kept a watchful eye on Moonbyul, and forced herself to contain her glee when the latter began to stir. Just in time, too, as she was convinced she could feel the spacecraft beginning to descend. 

 

“Solar? What’s going on?” Moonbyul asked the moment she was fully awake. 

 

“How are you feeling?” Solar helped her up as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. 

 

Moonbyul stretched, loosening her muscles and warming up her body. “Well, I felt like shit just a few minutes ago, but I feel really alive right now.” 

 

Solar beamed at her. “That's great!” The floor underneath their feet trembled; the jarring sound of gears meshing against each other grew louder. “Just in time, it seems. We are about to land.”

 

“Shit.” Moonbyul all but dashed to the door, peered out to ensure no one was standing outside, and rushed to one of the windows, Solar following in her wake. “Shit! We’re already starting to land.”

 

“On one of the Juris airstrips, I was told,” Solar helpfully informed Moonbyul.

 

“Juris?” Moonbyul slowly turned, her eyes wide with shock. “We’re actually going to land at Juris HQ?” She pressed her face to the window and stared out. “Oh, crap.”

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“Solar, you don’t understand.” Moonbyul looked at her in sheer panic. “We’re literally landing into major enemy territory. This is Hwasa’s territory. Science above, we’re so screwed.”

 

“Don’t worry,” Solar assured her. “I have a plan.” She informed Moonbyul about Wheein, about how the blonde woman had essentially saved Moonbyul’s life and had given very specific instructions upon landing.

 

“Wheein?” Moonbyul closed her eyes to think. “Wheein… sounds familiar.” She opened her eyes again and rubbed at the small band-aid on her arm, trying to recall any possible past memory of the woman.

 

“A small woman?” Solar placed a hand beside her elbow. “This tall, with a cute dimple in her cheek.” She squished her own cheek with a finger.

 

“Ah!” Moonbyul laughed; it was a sound that lifted Solar’s heart. “Small Wheein! And you said she told us where to go?”

 

“That’s right.”

“If there’s anyone we can trust, it’s her,"  Moonbyul murmured.

 

Just as she said that, the spacecraft landed with a small bump. Both women looked at each other, terrified and excited. “Time to go,” they said simultaneously.

 

One could never imagine how strained Moonbyul’s and Solar’s muscles were when they snuck around the spacecraft. Tiptoeing in boots was no easy task, and when the spaceship they were in was dead silent, keeping quiet was an even greater challenge. Solar allowed herself one quiet breath when they reached the start of the corridor that led to the exit.

 

“It’s just there,” Moonbyul hissed. “You ready?”

 

“I believe I am.” Solar steeled her nerves. “We must move directly towards the main building and find the healing bay.”

 

Moonbyul gave her a firm nod. “Right behind you.”

 

On the count of three, they sprinted towards the door, not caring when the heavy sound of their boots echoed throughout the spaceship. The only thing that mattered was getting through that door.

 

Twenty metres.

 

Ten metres.

 

Five.

 

Four.

 

Three.

 

Two.

 

One metre away from freedom -- and the door at the end of the corridor burst open. Hwasa stood there, whip ready in hand and a furious glower on her face. Behind her was a flustered Wheein, nervously peeking over Hwasa’s shoulder. When Solar caught her eye, she quickly waved her hand, gesturing for them to run away.

 

“And where do you think you’re going?” Hwasa thundered.

 

“Shit! Go!” Moonbyul followed Solar through the exit door and slammed it behind her, leaning against it with all her might as the door jerked and trembled under the force of Hwasa’s power.

 

They found themselves in a small room, only a few square feet wide. 

 

“Well? How do we get out?” Moonbyul demanded.

 

Solar tapped the floor with her boot, and it trembled under her feet. “This… this is a platform. See the thin line there?” Moonbyul’s gaze followed Solar’s pointed finger. There was indeed a thin slit running around the room, lines meeting at four corners to form a square. “This is the real exit.”

 

“How do we get out, then?” Moonbyul asked, her voice straining as her hands clung onto the wall and the door giving way behind her. “There’s gotta be some way to activate the damn thing.”

 

Solar started feeling around the walls, looking for a button, a lever, anything to activate the platform. 

 

“Can you hurry up?” Moonbyul shouted as the weight of the door (and the person on the other side of it) bore down on her back. 

 

“I’m trying, I'm trying!” But there was nothing to be found. 

 

Suddenly, Solar saw the light. She stomped her foot on the platform, hard. With a cranky growl the platform shook before giving way. She slipped her helmet on before gesturing at Moonbyul to hop on as the platform rapidly but gracefully descended.

 

Moonbyul arranged her suit helmet, then with a mighty leap jumped through the hole the platform had created. She landed on the ground with a muffled thump, her high-tech boots naturally absorbing most of the impact even as she followed through with the instinctive forward roll. 

 

The view before them was like nothing either of them had ever seen.

 

Overhead the sky burned a brilliant blue, though not a single bird was in sight, nor were there any clouds in the sky. 

 

Hwasa’s impressively massive spacecraft stood amongst many other smaller ones, although the smaller space shuttles were still much bigger than anything Moonbyul could ever imagine piloting. They were all perched on runways that extended into the horizon, engines thrumming like the heartbeat of a hawk preparing to launch itself towards its prey. One could certainly almost see the air shimmering with the combined heat of all the shuttles in the large space.

 

Working on the giant space shuttles were dozens and dozens of technicians and engineers, all armed with manual tools such as power drills and screwdrivers. Snaking between them were smaller robots that latched onto the shuttles and assisted with repairs and touch-ups. Yelling was inevitable; there was no other way to be heard, the engines of the shuttles drowning out all other sounds. 

 

It was perhaps this constant state of cacophony that allowed Solar and Moonbyul to sneak around an empty shuttle and hide behind it without being noticed. 

 

“There’s so many shuttles around!” Moonbyul quietly gushed to Solar, all sickness and pain from before completely non-existent. Her eyes shone with excitement and awe, as never in her wildest dreams would she ever have laid eyes on these many gorgeous machines. The engineers and technicians here were completely different than those on Mercury; unlike Moonbyul’s fellow miners, scrawny and slow as they were, these people appeared tough and well-built, and worked with a vigor that no simple workman could match. 

 

And the shuttles! Oh, Science above, the shuttles were magnificent. Moonbyul did not have the opportunity to admire Hwasa’s space shuttle -- on account of being unconscious when kidnapped and all of that -- but now that they were a good distance away from it, she could admire it in all of its glory. The way it shone, all sleek silver and polished black. The way it rose onto its spindly legs, allowing the many technicians gathered around it to do a quick fix-up, then a careful shift back to its original position.

 

And yet… for some reason, Moonbyul felt like it would never compare to the Woolsthorpe. A strange wave of sadness washed over her. Like her predecessor, she couldn’t complete the mission set out to them; there was no way she could ever round Neptune, and the idea of even managing to return back to Mercury was but a wistful dream.

 

“Moonbyul? Are you alright?” Solar placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

 

“Yeah. Yeah, don’t worry ‘bout it. Just thinking about… stuff.” Moonbyul rubbed at her eyes. Now was not the right time to be thinking about home, not when they were stuck here, trespassing in a potentially hostile environment.

 

Solar considered her next action, then nodded. No point in prying. Not now, at least. Instead, she gestured to their left with her chin. “Would you suppose that that is our destination?”

 

Moonbyul leaned over. Her eyes bugged out of their sockets when she saw what was before them. “Pretty sure that’s it.”

 

The building was, on all accounts, extremely intimidating, not just because of how it seemed to extend upwards into the sky -- although that did play a large part in its formidable presence --  but also because of the raw power that Moonbyul knew it held within its many rooms.

 

It was, after all, the headquarters of the ruling government of the galaxy. This was where all the members of the Juris would gather once a year, as well as all the people who worked directly under them, for the Grand Meeting. 

 

Like everyone else, Moonbyul understood the true importance of the meeting. It was carried out over the span of a few days, and almost always ended with the Juris Lord that oversaw the happenings on Mercury returning with a bountiful harvest of items, and would occasionally be generous enough to give out some of those that they had procured.

 

She remembered with a distant fondness telling her fellow miners -- and amusing Lars -- with tales of what she would do if she ever became one of the Lords. She would stride down one of their endless hallways, walk past the scientific research area, up the lift, and take the quick glides near the healing bay directly to the spacious meeting area where the other Lords would discuss whatever important matters they usually discussed.

 

Hwasa would be there, sitting regally like a queen on her throne, face impassive as she half-listened to the others speak. A few faces seemed familiar -- one of them was most certainly the Juris Lord from Mercury. The other, the most beautiful woman in the galaxy, Chrystal, sat opposite Hwasa, hands covering a beguiling smile. She beckoned Moonbyul over, and Moonbyul started forward…

 

Solar grabbed Moonbyul’s arm in a vice-grip. “Moonbyul, what’s wrong?” she asked, voice thick with worry.

 

Moonbyul frowned. Just a moment ago she swore she was in the headquarters of the Juris with the other Lords, although she had no idea how she knew any of them, or how they would sit. It was such a vivid daydream, too vivid to possibly be real.

 

“Nothing, just… weird daydreams.” She brushed it off, unsure as to what would happen if she dwelt on it any longer. 

 

Solar stared at her a while longer. Moonbyul’s behaviour was becoming more and more unusual, more distracted, unlike her usual focused self. “Well, now isn’t exactly the appropriate time to daydream. We need to get in that building and find our way to-”

 

“Hey!” A gruff voice shouted. Shocked, both women looked up. An engineer, rough around the edges and a hefty wrench in one hand, glared down at them. “What you doin’ here?”

 

“Crap.” Moonbyul pushed Solar, and they both tumbled away, rolling back up onto their feet. “Run!”

 

“Oi!” The engineer bellowed at them. “And where d’you think you’re goin’?” He ran after them, the wrench never leaving his hand. Moonbyul risked a glance back; with the way the engineer’s hard boots slammed against the ground, and his mouth twisted into a grimace, it was as if a crazed bull was on their heels.

 

They ran around shuttles, bobbing and weaving, nearly crashing into others as they fled the shuttle runway. Rounding the corner of the tall building, Solar’s keen eyes spotted a side door cleverly installed so it stood flush to the side of the building.

 

“In here!” She exclaimed, and both women hurriedly crammed themselves through the door. They caught their breath there in the darkness of the hidden passageway, doubled over with their backs to the door.

 

“Nice one,” Moonbyul breathed. “He shouldn’t be able to find us, we totally outran him then.”

 

“I certainly hope so,” Solar agreed. “Where do you think we are?”

 

Moonbyul glanced around in the awfully dim passageway. “Probably one of those secret technician’s entrances. For the cable guys and stuff. The building’s big enough that you gotta have a billion ways in for all the not-so-important people, y’know, for those of us who aren’t the Lords nor work under them.”

 

Solar sniffed contemptuously. “You’re important to me.”

 

Moonbyul blinked, then grinned. “Me too. I mean, you, you’re important too. To me. We’re friends, after all.”

 

“Just friends?” Solar murmured, so quietly that Moonbyul nearly missed the question.

 

“I-” Moonbyul hesitated. “We really shouldn’t be having this conversation now.” She attempted to steer the conversation away, but Solar was having none of it.

 

“You almost died back there, Moonbyul.” With the bleak lighting in the narrow corridor, Solar’s face was framed in shadows. Her pink hair sat dull on her shoulders, her head bowed down. “It made me really think about us -- or the potential of an ‘us’.”

 

“Solar, I can’t give you an answer just like that.”

 

“And why not?” Solar challenged.

 

Moonbyul heaved a sigh. “Because I’ve never actually been attracted to anyone. I don’t get feelings. Solar, I’m sorry, I just…”

 

Solar scrubbed at her eyes, stinging for reasons she did not want to think about. “It’s alright,” she quipped, her voice hard and dry as granite. She turned to look down the passageway. “I think we should go now. Wheein might be waiting for us.”

 

Moonbyul was not entirely surprised by Solar’s apathetic tone, and decided not to argue. How could she, after what could essentially be seen as a sort of rejection? So she followed Solar in silence, not speaking up until they exited the small passageway and found themselves in a long corridor not too dissimilar to the interior of Hwasa’s space shuttle.

 

“Where would you suppose the main healing bay is?” Solar wondered, looking around for some sort of signage that could point them to their destination. Before she could even take a step Moonbyul grabbed her arm and pointed to their left.

 

“This way.”

 

Solar raised her eyebrows at her instant response, but complied. Moonbyul smoothly guided them through the building, somehow knowing when people would appear and which way to turn in the maze of corridors, and when she unhesitatingly pressed the button to the fourth floor in the elevator, Solar was thoroughly spooked.

 

“Moonbyul, how-”

 

Moonbyul shuddered as the elevator silently made its way up. Her eyelids fluttered, and she seemed to recoil as she regained her senses. “I don’t know, it just- it just came to me. Like my body knows where to go even though I don’t have any memory of it.” She paused and turned to Solar. “It happened once before, come to think of it. When we were on Mercury, the first time we met.”

 

“I was struggling against the robots,” Solar recalled.

 

“The droids, yeah. And I saved you. I didn’t mean to” -- Solar looked affronted at this -- “not at that time, at least, because I didn’t know you, but my body reacted before I knew what was happening.”

 

Solar grinned. “Instinct attracted us to each other, you mean?”

 

Moonbyul shrugged. “I guess? And maybe one kind of attraction could lead to another?”

 

Solar zoned in on that question. “What does that mean?”

 

The elevator came to a halt as she asked the question, saving Moonbyul from having to give an awkward answer. “Oh, we’re here,” Moonbyul exclaimed, clearly relieved. After glancing left and right, she gestured to Solar and snuck out of the lift. “Come on, this way.”

 

Solar trailed behind Moonbyul, nervously looking out for any sign of hostility. But as they crept along, something in Solar’s peripheral vision caught her eye. “Moonbyul,” she whispered, tugging on the back of her companion’s suit, “do you know what is behind that door?”

 

“Which one?” She turned to see Solar already pushing a door open. “Dammit, Solar, you can’t just trespass into other people’s places like that.” 

 

Moonbyul followed her in anyway, and was stunned into silence.

 

Behind the door was a vast array of -- well, to be quite honest, even Moonbyul herself, self-declared technological expert extraordinaire, had no idea what exactly  was behind the door. To Solar, everything was just made of metal and glass and made for science. There were too many lights, flashing and blinking in glaring red and calming blue, and wires that criss-crossed and curled around each other like snakes. Lines and shapes formed patterns on screens, along with a multitude of data that scrolled through at a rapid pace.

 

Solar had never felt more out of place than right now. She wandered around the room, disoriented, and came to a halt outside a vertical pod. Through its translucent viewing glass she could make out the silhouette of a person.

 

“Moonbyul!” she hissed, waving the blue-haired woman over. She jabbed a finger at the pod, her eyes wide. “There’s someone in here!”

 

Intrigued, Moonbyul trotted over and looked over the machine. She poked the small display screen attached to the pod, fiddling with the pictures and labels on-screen. A page of data flashed on, and she scanned through it quickly.

 

“It says there’s a lady in there, and she’s been in there for quite a while.” Her eyes darted left and right as she read. “Seems like they do experiments on her or something?”

 

“Then we should remove her from this machine. No living thing should be experimented on like this,” Solar pointed out.

 

“Okay, let me just-” Moonbyul circled the pod, then pressed a button at random.

 

The pod hissed as its outer dome lifted. Cold mist escaped the pod as it opened, making Moonbyul shiver involuntarily. Once the mist cleared, Moonbyul felt the oddest sense of deja vu as she stared at the figure sleeping in the pod.

 

“T-that’s…” At a loss for words, Moonbyul stumbled back as Solar surged forward, alarm written all over her face.

 

“Diana!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy new year everyone! Would you believe it took me two months to write half a chapter and then like two-ish weeks to write the other half? Ridiculous, I know. It's been a mix of burnout, writer's block, and just me being too tired after work to use whatever little brain matter my human has to do things.
> 
> But anyway. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and as always, if you're liking the story so far, please do upvote and/or comment! Thank you for reading!
> 
> p.s. find me on twitter @ashensprites for more fun stuff (stories) that will probably happen in the future because i constantly have too many new ideas and honestly it's sorta kinda overwhelming


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